Desire blushed beautifully.  But one couldn’t resent so frank an interest.

“Yes,” she said.

“That thin, dark man is your husband?  The one with the chin?”

“He has a chin,” doubtfully.  “Oh, I see what you mean.  Yes, he is my husband.”

“Odd you never noticed his chin before,” commented the old lady.  “Well, look out!  That man has reserves.  Who is the other one?”

“A friend.”

The old lady shook a well-kept finger.

“Inconvenient things, friends!” said she.  “Far better without them.”

“Haven’t you any?”

“Not one.  They went on.  All old fogies now.”  Her air of boredom was unfeigned.

“But you have your daughter.”

“Too old!” The youthful eyes twinkled maliciously.  “Now you, my dear, would be nearer my age.  For you have youth within as well as without.  Keep it.  It’s all there is worth having.”

Desire smiled.  But the words lingered.  She had never valued her youth.  She had been impatient of it.  And now to be told that it was all there was worth having!  It was the creed of selfishness.  And yet—­had life already given her one of her greatest treasures and had she come near to missing the meaning of the gift?

At breakfast she observed her husband’s chin so narrowly that he became uneasy, wondering if he had forgotten to shave.  She looked at John’s chin, too, with reflective eyes.  Undoubtedly it was much inferior.

The train had conquered the mountains now and was plunging down upon their farther side.  Soon they were in the foot-hills and then nothing but a flashing streak across an endless, endless tableland of wheat.  Desire, who had never seen the prairie, smiled whimsically.

“It is like coming from the world’s cathedral to the world’s breakfast-table!” said she.

Aunt Caroline snorted.  For her part, she said, she found train breakfasts much the same anywhere except near the Great Lakes, where one might expect better fish.

It grew very hot.  The effortless speed of the train rolled up the blazing miles and threw them behind, league on league.  The sun set and rose on a level sky.  The babies of the rancher’s wife grew tired and sticky.  They were almost too much for their equally tired mother, so half of them sat on Desire’s lap most of the time. desire’s half seemed to bounce a great deal and gave bubbly kisses, but the rings around its fat wrist and the pink dimples in its fingers were well worth while keeping clean and cool just to look at.  It was true, as Desire reminded herself, that she did not care for children, but anyone might find a round, fat one with cooey laughs a pleasant thing to play with!  She did it mostly when Benis was in the smoker with John.

At Winnipeg the honeymoon couple left them and the old lady from Golden, much to her disgust, was also compelled to stay over for a day because her middle-aged daughter was train-sick.  Other and less interesting faces took their places.