s's eyes sparkled and a snatch of song came to his lips at
these times.

No figures in the Park were so striking. There was nothing bizarre,
but Gaston had a distinguished look, and women who had felt his hand at
their waists in the dance the night before, now knew him, somehow, at a
grave distance. Though Gaston did not say it to himself, these were the
hours when he really was with the old life--lived it again--prairie,
savannah, ice-plain, alkali desert. When, dismounting, the horses were
taken and they went up the stairs, Gaston would softly lay his whip
across Jacques's shoulders without speaking. This was their only ritual
of camaraderie, and neglect of it would have fretted the half-breed.
Never had man such a servant. No matter at what hour Gaston returned, he
found Jacques waiting; and when he woke he found him ready, as now, on
this morning, after a strange night.

"What is it, Jacques?" he repeated.

The old name! Jacques shivered a little with pleasure. Presently he
broke out with:

"Monsieur, when do we go back?"

"Go back where?"

"To the North, monsieur."

"What's in your noddle now, Brillon?"

The impatient return to "Brillon" cut Jacques like a whip.

"Monsieur," he suddenly said, his face glowing, his hands opening
nervously, "we have eat, we have drunk, we have had the dance and the
great music here: is it enough? Sometimes as you sleep you call out, and
you toss to the strokes of the tower-clock. When we lie on the Plains of
Yath from sunset to sunrise, you never stir then. You remember when we
sleep on the ledge of the Voshti mountain--so narrow that we were tied
together? Well, we were as babes in blankets. In the Prairie of the Ten
Stars your fingers were on the trigger firm as a bolt; here I have watch
them shake with the coffee-cup. Monsieur, you have seen: is it enough?
You have lived here: is it like the old lodge and the long trail?"

Gaston sat up in bed, looked in the mirror opposite, ran his fingers
through his hair, regarded his hands, turning them over, and then, with
sharp impatience, said:

"Go to hell!"

The little man's face flushed to his hair; he sucked in the air with
a gasp. Without a word, he went to the dressing-table, poured out the
shaving-water, threw a towel over his arm, and turned to come to the
bed; but, all at once, he sidled back, put down the water, and furtively
drew a sleeve across his eyes.

Gaston saw, and something suddenly burned in him. He drop