em, tiny white dots crouching upon the
earth.

I turned to Selda--and caught my breath. The wind, swooping up from the
sea, whipped her thin covering against her body and fluttered it like
the swift wings of a butterfly behind her. Her short, dark hair, too,
was lifted and blown back from her forehead, revealing the clean, soft
profile of her face. I had never seen a girl who stood so clean, so
straight. I watched her until she turned, too, and met my eyes. In them
I thought I detected something startled and unfathomable.

"My God!" I cried across the wind, "you are beautiful!" She frowned a
little, but her eyes still looked searchingly into mine. I stepped
forward, facing her. But I didn't touch her. I was afraid to touch
anything so clean.

"You belong here, Selda," I added. "The wind is a part of you, and the
mountains, and the sea. You shouldn't have to live in the midst of all
those people in the city. You belong here." She smiled faintly, looking
up at me.

"You belong here more than I do, Baret," she said. "You came to us, not
from the city, but from the hills."

* * * * *

We stood there, examining each other's eyes, for a long while. I wanted
to take her in my arms, but I didn't. I looked away at last, back at the
sea, puzzled and disturbed. I had never been aware of anything so fine
as this before, nor of anything so painful. Suddenly I found myself
wanting to be something, to do something--not for myself, but for her.
It was strange.

"Come," she said at last, "we had better go back."

"I'd like to stay here forever," I answered moodily, glancing around a
last time at the versatile horizon.

"So would I," she admitted. Then, in a low voice, she added, "But one
can't. One has to follow one's program."

We returned to the airship, raid rose into the cool, thin air. I stood
behind her on the way back, watching her slender body as she guided the
plane. Once in a while she would turn her head and look up at me over
her shoulder, then quickly look away again.

"Why is it," I asked her as we passed over the valleys and the river on
our way home, "why is it that these hills have such a cultivated
look--as though they had been laid out?" She glanced back, and smiled.

"They _have_ been laid out," she said. "The hills, and the rivers, and
the tallest mountains have all been constructed by our landscape artists
in order to achieve their various effects. Even the line of the