to
overtake the fleeing realities.

"I did, indeed; don't make me say it again. The lights are up, and the
audience might be looking. See how manfully Mr. Bigelow is trying not to
let Cousin Janet discover how she is crushing him!"

Out of the lower ravine the other members of the party were straggling,
with Bigelow giving first aid to a breathless and panting Mrs. Van
Bryck, and Wingfield and young Blacklock helping first one and then
another of the four younger women. The workmen in the cutting yard were
preparing to swing a third massive face-block into place on the dam; and
Miss Craigmiles, quite her serene self again, was asking to be shown how
the grappling hooks were made fast in the process of "toggling."

Ballard accepted his defeat with what philosophy he could muster, and
explained the technical detail. Then the others came up, and the
buckboards sent down from Castle 'Cadia to take the party home were seen
wheeling into line at the upper end of the short foothill canyon.

"There is our recall at last, Mr. Ballard," gasped the breathless
chaperon, "and I daresay you are immensely relieved. But you mustn't be
too sorry for your lost day. We have had a perfectly lovely time."

"Such a delightful day!" echoed the two sharers of the common Christian
name in unison; and the king's daughter added demurely: "Don't you see
we are all waiting for you to ask us to come again, Mr. Ballard?"

"Oh, certainly; any time," said Ballard, coming to the surface.
Notwithstanding, on the short walk up to the waiting buckboards he sank
into the sea of perplexity again. Elsa's moods had always puzzled him.
If they were not real, as he often suspected, they were artistically
perfect imitations; and he was never quite sure that he could
distinguish between the real and the simulated.

As at the present moment: the light-hearted young woman walking beside
him up the steep canyon path was the very opposite of the sorely tried
and anxious one who had twice let him see the effects of the anxiety,
however carefully she concealed the cause.

The perplexed wonder was still making him half abstracted when he put
himself in the way to help her into one of the homeward-headed vehicles.
They were a little in advance of the others, and when she faced him to
say good-bye, he saw her eyes. Behind the smile in them the troubled
shadows were still lurking; and when the heartening word was on his lips
they looked past him, dilating suddenly