She sprang gracefully to her feet, eyes sparkling. She nodded eagerly, held out her hand to him.
Mulvaney would not have been astonished had she stepped out the window and floated lightly to the ground. He would have followed heroically after. She did nothing of the kind, however. She took his hand and led him down the stairs to the front door.
Then they were treading barefoot through soft grass, and he felt the caress of the nightwind on his body.
"Pinch me," Mulvaney said. "I want to know if I'm dreaming!"
Joan Jordanthe new Joan Jordanlaughed up into his questioning face. She sobered quickly.
"Tell me, Kennethhow did your parentsdie?"
He frowned and remained stubbornly silent.
"I'm so tired of the Valley, Kenneth. I plan to leave it soon. It may some day save my life to know."
She was mad. He could no longer doubt it. What had he let himself in for? Suppose the fierce inhabitants of the town should find them naked together like this? He thought of horsewhips and rails and feathers and tarpots.
None the less, some of the girl's ecstatic exuberance flowed into him. Abandonment began to throb in his veins. The accident suffered by his parents so long ago seemed somehow less personal than it had.
"I was only six when it happened. They went swimmingand drowned."
"Oh." She sounded disappointed. "Is that all?"
"No. We lived on a farm. A neighbor lost some of his stock. Wolves, he said. He'd seen them crossing the irrigation ditch between our two places. My folks always enjoyed swimming in the ditch on moonlight nights" He halted and looked at her suspiciously.
"Go on," she breathed.
"They went out one night to swim. They didn't come back. Our neighbor found them next morningdrowned in the ditch."
"But how? Not both. It couldn't just happen."
"No. Our neighbor had secretly set traps under the water for the wolves he claimed to have seen crossing there."
"Oh!" Horror throbbed in the cry. Then, "The wolvesdid they ever come to his farm again?"
"I don't know. I was sent away to an orphanage."
Her white forehead wrinkled.
"Sometimes the ranchers around here set wolf-traps. But never under water. That'stoo cruel!"
Perhaps Mulvaney was beginning to guess the truth. Perhaps he preferred to believe that both of them were delightfully mad. Thought of the truth was so devastating. And worse than madness. For the moment, he was content to reject the thoughts that pounded at his brain. There was a primal joy to trotting across the soft pasture in the moonlight, the thrillingly naked girl at his side.
The moon was reflected in silver spangles from the dark, massed leaves of the cottonwoods along the creek. They paused in the shadows, where the bank dipped down to the cool dark waters.
The girl put both hands on his chest, forcing him to sit. Her vibrant young body was trembling with eagerness.
"Don't move," she whispered. "Watch me!"
A stray shaft of moonlight flashed upon her marble skin. She dipped into the creek, rolled over in the shallow water, flanks gleaming. He could see the water foam, and the girl's body struggling; then she pawed toward shore. Emerging, it was
