“I have indeed.  It’s a wonderful tie.”

“Neat but not gaudy, eh?” He grinned at her, happily.  “You know, you might steer me a bit about my ties.  I have the taste of an African savage.  I nearly bought a purple one, with red stripes.  And Aunt Lucy thinks I should wear white lawn, like David!”

They talked, those small, highly significant nothings which are only the barrier behind which go on the eager questionings and unspoken answers of youth and love.  They had known each other for years, had exchanged the same give and take of neighborhood talk when they met as now.  To-day nothing was changed, and everything.

Then, out of a clear sky, he said: 

“I may be going away before long, Elizabeth.”

He was watching her intently.  She had a singular feeling that behind this, as behind everything that afternoon, was something not spoken.  Something that related to her.  Perhaps it was because of his tone.

“You don’t mean-not to stay?”

“No.  I want to go back to Wyoming.  Where I was born.  Only for a few weeks.”

And in that “only for a few weeks” there lay some of the unspoken things.  That he would miss her and come back quickly to her.  That she would miss him, and that subconsciously he knew it.  And behind that, too, a promise.  He would come back to her.

“Only for a few weeks,” he repeated.  “I thought perhaps, if you wouldn’t mind my writing to you, now and then—­I write a rotten hand, you know.  Most medical men do.”

“I should like it very much,” she said, primly.

She felt suddenly very lonely, as though he had already gone, and slightly resentful, not at him but at the way things happened.  And then, too, everyone knew that once a Westerner always a Westerner.  The West always called its children.  Not that she put it that way.  But she had a sort of vision, gained from the moving pictures, of a country of wide spaces and tall mountains, where men wore quaint clothing and the women rode wild horses and had the dash she knew she lacked.  She was stirred by vague jealousy.

“You may never come back,” she said, casually.  “After all, you were born there, and we must seem very quiet to you.”

“Quiet!” he exclaimed.  “You are heavenly restful and comforting.  You—­” he checked himself and got up.  “Then I’m to write, and you are to make out as much of my scrawl as you can and answer.  Is that right?”

“I’ll write you all the town gossip.”

“If you do—!” he threatened her.  “You’re to write me what you’re doing, and all about yourself.  Remember, I’ll be counting on you.”

And, if their voices were light, there was in both of them the sense of a pact made, of a bond that was to hold them, like clasped hands, against their coming separation.  It was rather anti-climacteric after that to have him acknowledge that he didn’t know exactly when he could get away!