"When it don't get the hic-cups, it beats a
horse all hollow!"
"What do you know about horses?" teased Mac, giving unnecessary
assistance with the wheel.
"Enough to keep my hands off the reins when another fellow's driving!"
she said coolly--a remark that moved Mac to boisterous laughter.
When they were on the homeward way and Mac had taken the wheel again,
they found little to say to each other. Once he got her to light a
cigarette for him, and once or twice she asked a question about the
engine. In Calvary Alley one talked or one didn't as the mood suggested,
and Nance was unversed in the fine art of making conversation. It
disturbed her not a whit that she and the handsome youth beside her had
no common topic of interest. It was quite enough for her to sit there
beside him, keenly aware that his arm was pressing hers and that every
time she glanced up she found him glancing down.
It was a night of snow and moonshine, one of those transitorial nights
when winter is going and spring is coming. Nance held her breath as the
car plunged headlong into one mass of black shadows after another only to
emerge triumphant into the white moonlight. She loved the unexpected
revelations of the headlights, which turned the dim road to silver and
lit up the dark turf at the wayside. She loved the crystal-clear moon
that was sailing off and away across those dim fields of virgin snow. And
then she was not thinking any longer, but feeling--feeling beauty and
wonder and happiness and always the blissful thrill of that arm pressed
against her own.
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