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Dalrymple, Leona, 1884-

"Diane of the Green Van"


Diane was sewing. He had caught the flutter of her gown beneath a
cedar as he stopped the car. There was no one visible in the camp of
the Indian girl. Ronador sprang from his car and waved to the girl,
smiling, she came to meet him.
Now as Ronador smiled down into the clear, unfaltering eyes of the girl
before him, he knew suddenly that he trusted her utterly, that the mad
suspicion, sired by the words of Themar and mothered by jealousy, was
but a dank mist that melted away in the sunlight of her presence. Only
jealousy remained and a smouldering, unscrupulous hate for the
persistent young organ-grinder behind him.
Chatting pleasantly they returned to camp.
Imperceptibly their talk of the fortunes of the road took on a more
intimate tinge of reminiscence and presently, with searching eyes fixed
upon the vivid, lovely face of the wind-brown gypsy beneath the cedar,
Ronador asked the girl to marry him.
Very gently Diane released her hands from his grasp, her cheeks scarlet.
"Indeed, indeed," she faltered, "I could not with fairness answer you
now, for I do not in the least know what I think. You will not
misunderstand me, I am sure, if I tell you that not once in the long,
pleasant days we journeyed the same roads, did I ever dream of the
nature of your pleasant friendship.


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