sweet scent of heliotrope--the perfume that
had filled his nostrils on that other night, a long time ago, the sweet
scent that had come to him in the handkerchief dropped on the rock, the
breath of the bit of lace that had bound Jeanne's hair!

Eileen moved toward him. "Philip," she said, "now are you glad to see
me?"

IX

Her voice broke the spell that had held him for a moment.

"I am glad to see you," he cried, quickly, seizing both her hands.
"Only I haven't quite yet awakened from my dream. It seems too
wonderful, almost unreal. Are you the old Eileen who used to shudder
when I told you of a bit of jungle and wild beasts, and who laughed at
me because I loved to sleep out-of-doors and tramp mountains, instead
of decently behaving myself at home? I demand an explanation. It must
be a wonderful change--"

"There has been a change," she interrupted him. "Sit down,
Philip--there!" She nestled herself on a stool, close to his feet, and
looked up at him, her hands clasped under her chin, radiantly lovely.
"You told me once that girls like me simply fluttered over the top of
life like butterflies; that we couldn't understand life, or live it,
until somewhere--at some time--we came into touch with nature. Do you
remember? I was consumed with rage then--at your frankness, at what I
considered your impertinence. I couldn't get what you said out of my
mind. And I'm trying it."

"And you like it?" He put the question almost eagerly.

"Yes." She was looking at him steadily, her beautiful gray eyes meeting
his own in a silence that stirred him deeply. He had never seen her
more beautiful. Was it the firelight on her face, the crimson leapings
of the flames, that gave her skin a richer hue? Was it the mingling of
fire and shadow that darkened her cheeks? An impulse made him utter the
words which passed through his mind.

"You have already tried it," he said. "I can see the effects of it in
your face. It would take weeks in the forests to do that."

The gray eyes faltered; the flush deepened.

"Yes, I have tried it. I spent a half of the summer at our cottage on
the lake."

"But it is not tan," he persisted, thrilled for a moment by the
discoveries he was making. "It is the wind; it is the open; it is the
smoke of camp-fires; it is the elixir of balsam and cedar and pine.
That is what I see in your face--unless it is the fire."

"It is the fire, partly," she said. "And the rest is the wind and the
open of t