he day he had spurred across the desert, Kitty, with
true feminine perversity, inclined to permit him to resume his suit. His
acquiescence in her refusal she had at first regarded as the turning of
the worm; after the wolf-hunt, however, her meditations were more
disturbing. She had never told Peter of that strange woodland meeting with
Judith, yet Judith's beauty, her probable hold over Peter, the degree of
his affection for her were rankling questions in Kitty's consciousness. In
the stress of these considerations Kitty lost her head completely for so
old a campaigner. She drew the apron-string tight--attempted force instead
of strategy.

Kitty and Peter finished their waltz, one of the few round dances of the
evening.

"How perfectly you dance, Kitty! It's a long time since we've had a waltz
together."

The cow-punchers looked at Kitty as if she were not quite flesh and blood.
Such flaxen daintiness, femininty etherealized to angelic perfection, was
new to them, but their admiration was like that given to a delicate exotic
which, wonderful as it is, one is well pleased to view through the glass
of the florist's window.

Peter was deferentially attentive and zealous to make the Wetmore party
have a thoroughly good time, yet he did all these things, as it were, with
his eye on the door. He was not obviously distrait; he was the man of the
world, talking, making himself agreeable, "doing his duty," while his
subconsciousness was busy with other matters. It was rather through
telepathy than through any lack of attention paid to her that Kitty
realized the state of things, and in proportion to her realization came a
feeling of helplessness; it was so new, so unexpected, so cruel. He seemed
drifting away from her on some tide of affairs of the very existence of
which she had been unconscious. Further and further he had drifted, till
intelligible speech no longer seemed possible between them. They said the
foolish, empty things that people call out as the boat glides away from
the shore, the things that all the world may hear, and in his eyes there
was only that smiling kindness. How had it come about after all these
years? What was it that had first cut the cable that sent him drifting?
What was it? She must think. Oh, who could think with that noise! How
silly was their singing as they danced, how uncouth!

"All dance as pretty as you can,
Turn your toes and left alleman;
First gent sashay to the right,
N