"If we pick up another man, he'll start making love to you; and if we pick up another girl one of us will start making love to her."
"I don't think so." Blake sat up. "We don't make love now, so why should anyone else start us off? We're different."
"Oh, you think so?" Teddy laughed in a nasty patronizing manner that disturbed Blake. "Wait a while. We know each other too well, this crowd. Take it from me, someone else will spoil it."
Blake was uneasy. He hated to carry the conversation farther, but he was too worried to let it drop. "Why should we change?" he persisted. "We get along."
"How do you know? How do you know Gin gets along, for instance? Or that I do?"
Gin interrupted, saying, "Oh, shut up, Teddy. Never mind," she added to Blake, "he's talking through his hat. Go to sleep."
Wonderingly, Blake looked from one to the other of his companions. They were glaring at each other.
"Why should I? What are you trying to do; mother him? This is no nursery." Teddy lay down with his back to the others.
"Well then, try to act your age," she retorted, but there was no answer.
In the next few minutes the quiet of the prairie was disturbed by Teddy's soft snores. The atmosphere had cleared and everything was peaceful. Blake sighed and flopped over in his cocoon.
She lifted her head. "I can't sleep." They peered at Teddy, and she added, "I think I'll take a walk. It's awfully early. Do you want to come along?"
Softly he untangled his feet and put his shoes on again; she did the same. They tiptoed away to the road and set out at a good stride. The starlight was blue.
"I kept thinking of poetry," he explained, "and I couldn't get to sleep. It kept going round and round in my head."
"Just little pieces that I've read. I thought this one over and over:
"While waves far off in a pale rose twilight Crash on a white sand shore.
"I don't think it's right, but that's the way I remember it."
"There's just one poem I remember," she said. "You know----
"From too much love of living, From hope and fear set free....
"Do you like that one too?" he asked. Incredible! They stared at each other.
The light of a ranch house was ahead of them, and they paused.
"Let's go back," she said. He nodded and they turned.