to decide
that.

They sat outside the silent tent, on a wardrobe trunk. What manner of
night it was, whether starlit or sullen, Carl did not know; he was
aware only that it was oppressive, and that Eve was in his arms in the
darkness. He kissed her moist, hot neck. He babbled incoherently of
the show people, but every word he said meant that he was palpitating
because her soft body was against his. He knew--and he was sure that
she knew--that when they discussed Heye's string tie and pretended to
laugh, they were agitatedly voicing their intoxication.

His voice unsteady, Carl said: "Jiminy! it's so hot, Eve! I'm going to
take off this darn shirt and collar and put on a soft shirt. S-say,
w-why don't you put on a kimono or something? Be so much cooler."

"Oh, I don't know as I ought to----" She was frightened, awed at
Bacchic madness. "D-do you think it would be all right?"

"Why not? Guess anybody's got a right to get cool--night like this.
Besides, they won't be back till 4 P.M. And you got to get cool. Come
on."

And he knew--and he was sure that she knew--that all he said was
pretense. But she rose and said, nebulously, as she stood before him,
ruffling his hair: "Well, I would like to get cool. If you think it's
all right----I'll put on something cooler, anyway."

She went. Carl could hear a rustling in the women's end of the
dressing-room tent. Fevered, he listened to it. Fevered, he changed to
an outing-shirt, open at the throat. He ran out, not to miss a moment
with her.... She had not yet come. He was too overwrought to heed a
small voice in him, a voice born of snow-fields colored with sunset
and trained in the quietudes of Henry Frazer's house, which insisted:
"Go slow! Stop!" A louder voice throbbed like the pulsing of the
artery in his neck, "She's coming!"

Through the darkness her light garment swished against the long grass.
He sprang up. Then he was holding her, bending her head back. He
exulted to find that his gripping hand was barred from the smoothness
of her side only by thin silk that glided and warmed under his
fingers. She sat on his knees and snuggled her loosened hair
tinglingly against his bare chest. He felt that she was waiting for
him to go on.

Suddenly he could not, would not, go on.

"Dearest, we mustn't!" he mourned.

"O Carl!" she sobbed, and stopped his words with clinging lips.

He found himself waiting till she should finish the kiss that he might
put an end to this