d stand uncontradicted;
he had not told her he would not come. She went outside and stared for
awhile in the direction of Tucson, turning with a little start when her
mother spoke just behind her.

"Did Johnny tell you he was coming, Mary V?"

"My goodness, mom! Of _course_, he--well, it was just the same as
saying he would. I told him he had to come and I'd expect him, and he
didn't say he wouldn't. Why, for gracious sake, do you suppose I went
and fixed his din--dinner--?" Mary V gulped down a sob she had not
suspected was present.

"Well, there, now, don't cry about it. You'll have plenty better
reasons to cry after you're married to him. Seems to me the boy's
changed considerable, if he comes and goes at the crook of your finger,
Mary V. Johnny's most as stubborn as you be, if I'm any judge. If I
was in your place, Mary V, I'd 'phone and find out if he's started,
before I commenced crying because he was late."

"I did 'phone. And he wasn't at the hotel--"

"Land sakes, child, I heard you! You might as well have asked what the
weather was like. If I was you I'd ask if his airplane is there. If
it is, there's no sense in you straining your eyes looking for it. If
it ain't, he's likely on the way somewhere. But from what I heard of
your talk last night, and from what I know about Johnny--"

"For pity's _sake_, mom! If you listened in--"

"There now, Mary V, you shouldn't object to your own mother overhearing
anything you've got to say. And if you expect me to clap my hands over
my cars and start on a long lope across the desert the minute you begin
to 'phone--"

Mary V laughed and gave her mother a bear-hug. Mommie was a plump
matron, and the idea of her loping across the desert with her hands
over her ears was funny. "You do have tremendously sensible ideas,
mommie, though you simply do not understand Johnny as I do. I am
perfectly positive that he would not disappoint me. However, I'll just
make sure when he started. I'm so afraid of some horrible accident--"

"Well, you 'phone first, before you begin to borrow trouble," her
mother advised her shrewdly. "I know if you had laid down the law to
me the way you did to Johnny, I'd stay away if it was the last thing I
did on earth. And Johnny--"

Mary V called Tucson again, and mommie subsided so as not to interrupt.
There was a delay while the hotel clerk obligingly sent a boy over to
where Johnny kept his airplane. While she waited fo