“You’re my Sally,” David said gently, his arms gathering her in, holding her comfortingly against his breast, in a passionless embrace of utter tenderness. “Do you think I would let that make any difference at all? If anything could, it would make me love you more. But I love you now with every bit of me. And we’ll be married, Sally. What do I care about being a scientific farmer?” But there was a note of bravado, of regret in his voice that did not escape her love attuned ears. “No, David,” she whispered, her hands straying over his face as if memorizing every dear line of it. “We’ll wait. I can wait. I’ve waited twelve years to find my mother, and I didn’t give up hope until today. I would wait twice twelve years for you. I’ll stick with the carnival if Pop Bybee will let me, and if the police don’t find us. Then when you’re through college—?” “But I’m damned if I can see how I’m to get back!” David burst out. “We are both trapped in this second-rate carnival—and a first rate one would be bad enough!” “We won’t have to stay after we get to New York,” Sally interrupted reasonably. “We can start life again. This trouble will blow over. You might even learn some other profession in the east—” “I don’t want to learn anything else, live anywhere else but in the middle west. It’s my land. I love it. I want to serve it. But, oh, Sally, let’s not torture ourselves any more. I know I mustn’t marry you under this cloud, but let’s be happy for a few minutes before we go back to the show train. No, don’t, darling!” as she lifted her arms. “Just sit there on my coat and let me look at you. You’re the most beautiful thing in the world. Lovely Sally!” They sat side by side, hands not touching but hearts reaching toward each other, and the minutes slipped silently away as David drank in her moon-silvered young beauty, and she fed her love-hunger upon his Viking-like handsomeness and strength. They were silently agreeing to go when a sharp, metallic voice materialized suddenly out of the hush of the darkness. “No monkey-business now, Steve! I’m warning you! If you double-cross me I’ll cut your heart out! Fifty-fifty and—” The rest was lost as the couple passed on, walking swiftly, two shadows that seemed like one. The voice was Nita’s. CHAPTER IX When Sally was awakened soon after dawn the next morning—Wednesday—by the shouts and songs of the “white hopes” unloading the carnival on the outskirts of the Capital City, the question which had insisted on worming its way through the heavenly joy of knowing that David loved her sprang instantly to the foreground of her mind; who was “Steve” with whom Nita had quarreled and bargained in the dark last night?