o'clock she went down, feeling as if it were all in her face;
but apparently nobody saw anything beyond the undoubted fact that in her
white frock she looked as fresh and as vivid as a flower. At half after
ten Rosamond came to her to know if she had received an invitation from
Richard Kendrick to go for a horseback ride, adding that she herself was
delighted at the thought and had telephoned Stephen, to find that he
also was pleased and would be up in time.

"I wonder where he's going to take us," speculated Rosamond, in a
flutter of anticipation. "Without doubt it will be somewhere that's
perfectly charming; he knows how to do such things. Of course it's all
for you, but I shall love to play chaperon, and Stevie and I shall have
a lovely time out of it. I haven't been on a horse since Dorothy came; I
hope I haven't grown too stout for my habit. What are you going to wear,
Rob? The blue cloth? You are perfectly irresistible in that! Do wear
that rakish-looking soft hat with the scarf; it's wonderfully becoming,
if it isn't quite so correct; and I'm sure Richard Kendrick won't take
us to any stupid fashionable hotel. He'll arrange an outdoor affair, I'm
confident, with the Kendrick chef to prepare it and the Kendrick
servants to see that it is served. Oh, it's such a glorious June day!
Aren't you happy, Rob?"

"If I weren't it would make me happy to look at you, you dear married
child," and Roberta kissed her pretty sister-in-law, who could be as
womanly as she was girlish, and whose companionship, with that of
Stephen's, she felt to be the most discriminating choice of chaperonage
Richard could have made. Stephen and Rosamond, off upon a holiday like
this, would be celebrating a little honeymoon anniversary of their own,
she knew, for they had been married in June and could never get over
congratulating themselves on their own happiness.

CHAPTER XXIII

RICHARD HAS WAKED EARLIER

Twelve o'clock, one o'clock, two o'clock. Roberta wondered afterward
what she had done with the hours! At three she had her bath; at half
after she put up her hair, hardly venturing to look at her own face in
her mirror, so flushed and shy was it. Roberta shy?--she who, according
to Ted, "wasn't afraid of anything in the world!" But she _had_ been
afraid of one thing, even as Richard Kendrick had averred. Was she not
afraid of it now? She could not tell. But she knew that her hands shook
as she put up her hair, and that it tumble