rk; and presently they would find
themselves talking. It was because David Cairns, as a lover, was out of
the question from her point of view in the first days, that such a
splendid companionship was established. He did not know that a woman
could be such a companion; and her unconsciousness of his deeper quest,
gave her an ease with him, that was one of the secrets of her great and
growing charm.

Heretofore, all feminine aspirants for Cairns' admiration had ranged
themselves in his mind against the paragon, Beth Truba (with whom he
had long comported himself with a rueful might-have-been manner, both
pretty and pleasant). Beth had easily transcended. Whatever was great
and desirable in woman was likely to wear a Beth Truba hall-mark for
his observation. Now, that was changed, not that Beth suffered eclipse,
nor that his admiration abated; indeed, his gratefulness for that word
of Beth's at just the proper moment, which had caused him gallantly to
take the road of Vina Nettleton, was a rare study; but another had
risen, not of Beth, but of more intimate meaning to the man, David
Cairns. Beth's great force of feminine energy and aspiration, he had
been unable to attract. Beth had demanded more than virtue from him,
and at a time when he was not finished enough to answer her many
restless dreams.

Cairns and Vina Nettleton had in reality just met, and at one of the
memorable crossings of eternity. To each, the other had just been
brought forth from a sumptuous shadow of nature. In the brighter light
they discerned each other. Cairns was first to see, for he had been
told, and he brought to the meeting all the fresh inspirations of his
maturity, and they rested upon the solid values earned through a life
of hard-held decency.

Among the May days there was one afternoon in which the conception of
summer was in the air. It was not the heat alone, but the stirring of
the year's tremendous energy everywhere, even under pavements. The
warmth of creation was kindly in old bones and old walls, and an
imperious quickening in the elastic veins of youth. Vina (half-way up a
step-ladder) turned about and sat down on one of the steps. Cairns had
asked her what plans she had for the summer.

"Oh, I shan't be a great way from New York. Maybe a trip or two over to
my beloved Nantucket."

This started her to thinking and presently to expatiating upon the
dearest place on earth to her mind.... She told him how the villagers
refused