less. Occasionally Channing felt, and
acted, quite like an ordinary young man in love.

Now he lay quite still, that he might hear that low breathing across the
room, trying to distinguish Jacqueline's from the rest. He had taken the
precaution to open both doors of the cabin wide, after his hosts were
safely asleep, letting in the moonlight and a little breeze that smelled
keenly of pine woods. Now and then a faint bird-note broke the hush, or
the mournful quaver of a screech-owl. The situation was not without
picturesque piquancy for a collector of impressions.

Beside him, Benoix and the other man slept with the abandon of tired
animals, and the sound of their sleeping somewhat disturbed the poetry
of the night. On the whole, however, he preferred them sleeping to
waking. He sent his thoughts, on tiptoe, as it were, across the room.
How exquisite she was, with her slim bare feet, and the hint of a chaste
little ruffle showing at throat and wrist! Those drowsy, dewy eyes--the
fluttering pulse in her soft throat--her clinging lips, which kissed as
unconsciously as a child's until suddenly they were edged with fire....

Channing's thoughts became so insistent that perhaps they wakened her.
There was a slight stirring in the bunk across the room, a slender gray
shape appeared on the edge of it, feeling about on the floor for shoes.
Still barefoot, with shoes in her hand, Jacqueline crept to the door.

Channing, all his fatigues forgotten, very carefully extricated himself
from among the slumberers and followed. He congratulated himself upon
the fact that his preparations for the night had been extremely sketchy,
had in fact consisted merely in removing his coat and riding-boots. Once
safe outside the cabin, he pulled on the boots, smoothed his hair with
his fingers, knotted the handkerchief more becomingly about his throat,
and went in pursuit of Jacqueline.

He had not far to go. She was sitting on the top rail of the nearest
fence, her back toward him, framed in the center of the setting moon.
She turned as he came upon her with a startled gasp:

"O-oh! You, Mr. Channing!"

One of the sweetest things about the girl to Channing was the queer
little tender respect with which she always treated him. Even in their
most intimate moments, he was still the great man, the superior order of
being. She could not possibly have called him "Percival." Though he
chided her for this attitude of respect, it did not displease him