the full as
she lay there almost forgetful of Van Shaw's presence until she was
startled out of her day dream by his voice as he moved from where he had
been standing and came and sat down on the edge of the kiva near her.

CHAPTER XV

"MISS DOUGLAS, I haven't had half a chance to talk to you and you'll
forgive me, won't you, if I take advantage of this moment."

Helen was not in the slightest degree prepared for what Van Shaw was
going to say. She was conscious, as every beautiful young woman must be,
of her charms and of the effect of them on the young men she met, but
she would have been a most remarkably vain and shallow person if she had
ever imagined for herself such a scene as the one now being acted out on
the top of the rock at Oraibi. The wildest stretch of her romantic
temperament had never carried her so far, and when she first began to
really grasp the sense of what Van Shaw was saying she was frightened
and angry. At the same time there was a certain feeling of pride and
exultation of which she was vaguely ashamed.

Helen quietly began to say some simple thing in reply to Van Shaw's
first remark when he hurriedly went on, interrupting her:

"I won't have much time to speak now, but I'm going to risk everything,
and tell you. I just can't keep it to myself. It may sound awfully
absurd to you,--I suppose it does, but I can't help it. I'm just simply
dead in love with you and I want you to know that I------"

"What!" said Helen sharply. She was so disturbed, so confused in her
mind that Van Shaw's words seemed unreal, as unreal as the kiva on which
she was sitting or the changing groups of vivid colour moving about on
the tops of the houses.

"I can't help it," Van Shaw began again hurriedly, "You do not know how
fascinating you are. It has just swept me off my feet."

This time Helen understood what Van Shaw was saying and her face was
flooded with a swift wave of colour. And she said coldly:

"You have no right to talk to me like that. I will not listen." She
turned her head and saw her mother just coming out of Talavenka's house,
standing at the foot of the ladder as if preparing to go up with Mrs.
Masters to the house roof.

"Mother!" she called, in a dim way thinking of nothing except her desire
somehow to escape a very embarrassing scene with Van Shaw. But there was
so much noise made by the clattering groups of tourists and the sudden
arrival of new comers that Mrs. Douglas did not hear.