He did not touch her, his face did not come near her face. But in his eyes, in his voice, in the tender, one-sided little smile, there was something,--Mary Hope caught her breath, feeling as if she had been kissed. "You little, lonesome girl! There's going to be a party at Cottonwood Spring, a week from Friday night. It's a secret--a secret for you. And you won't tell a soul that you were the first to know--and you'll come, you girl, because it's your party. And not a soul will know it's your party. If your father's Scotch is too hard for dancing--you'll come just the same. You'll come, because the secret is for you. And--" He thought that he read something in her eyes and hastened to forestall her intention "--and you won't go near Cottonwood Spring before the time of the party, because that wouldn't be playing fair. "Don't be lonely, girl. The world is full of pleasant things, just waiting to pop out at you from behind every bush. If you're good and kind and honest with life, the Fates are going to give you the best they've got. Don't be lonely! Just wait for the pleasant things in to-morrow and to-morrow--in all the to-morrows. And one of them, girl, is going to show you the sweetest thing in life. That's love, you girl with the tears back of your Scotch blue eyes. But wait for it--and take the little pleasant things that minutes have hidden away in the to-morrows. And one of the pleasant times will be hidden at Cottonwood Spring, a week from Friday night. Wonder what it will be, girl. And if any one tries to tell it, put your hands over your ears, so that you won't hear it. Wait--and keep wondering, and come to Cottonwood Spring next Friday night. Adios, girl." He looked into her eyes, smiling a little. Then, turning suddenly, he left her without a backward glance. Left her with nothing to spoil the haunting cadence of his voice, nothing to lift the spell of tender prophecy his words had laid upon her soul. When he was quite gone, when she heard the clatter of his horse's hoofs upon the arid soil that surrounded the Whipple shack, Mary Hope still stared out through the open doorway, seeing nothing of the March barrenness, seeing only the tender, inscrutable, tantalizing face of Lance Lorrigan,--tantalizing because she could not plumb the depths of his eyes, could not say how much of the tenderness was meant for her, how much was born of the deep music of his voice, the whimsical, one-sided smile. And Lance, when he had ridden a furlong from the place, had dipped into a shallow draw and climbed the other side, turned half around in the saddle and looked back.