ied man in camp, felt entirely secure.

Henry Fuller stayed on after the others went back to the city, and I
would have been deeply disturbed by Zulime's keen interest in him, had I
not been fully informed of their relationship, which was entirely that
of intellectual camaraderie. Fuller was not merely a resolved bachelor;
he was joyously and openly opposed to any form of domesticity. He loved
his freedom beyond all else. The Stewardess knew this and revelled in
his wit, sharing my delight in his bitter ironies. His verbal
inhumanities gave her joy, because she didn't believe in them. They were
all "literature" to her.

The weather was glorious September, and as my writing was going forward,
my companionship ideal, and my mother's letters most cheerful, I
abandoned myself, as I had not done in twenty years, to a complete
enjoyment of life. Golden days! Halcyon days! Far and sweet and serene
they seem as I look back upon them from the present--days to review with
wistful regret that I did not more fully employ them in the way of
youth, for alas! my mornings were spent in writing when they should have
been given to walking with my sweetheart; yet even as I worked I had a
sense of her nearness, and the knowledge that the shimmering summer
landscape was waiting for me just outside my door, comforted me.
However, I was not wholly neglectful of my opportunities. My afternoons
were given over to walking or riding with her, and our evenings were
spent in long and quiet excursions on the river or sitting with the
artists in the light of a bonfire on the edge of the bluff, talking and
singing.

The more I knew of Miss Taft the more her versatility amazed me. She
could paint, she could model, she could cook and she could sew. As
Stewardess, she took charge of the marketing, and when the kitchen fell
into a flutter, her masterly taste and skill brought order--and a
delicious dinner--out of chaos. It remains to say that, in addition to
all these, her intellectual activities, she held her own in the fierce
discussions (concerning Art) which broke out at the table or raged like
whirlwinds on the moonlit bluff--discussions which centered around such
questions as these: "Can a blue shadow painting ever be restful?" "Is
Local Color essential to fiction?" I particularly admired the Stewardess
in these moments of controversy, for she never lost her temper or her
point of view.

Incredibly sweet and peaceful that week appears as I view