helpless he would feel if he were as small
as she, and at his utmost height could only see big, suffocating backs
and huge shoulders pressing down from above. He was keeping them from
crowding heavily upon her with all his strength, and a royal feeling of
protectiveness came over him. She was so little. And yet, without the
remotest hint of hardness, she gave him such a distinct impression of
poise and equilibrium, she seemed so able to meet anything that might
come, to understand it--even to laugh at it--so Americanly capable and
sure of the event, that in spite of her pale cheek he could not feel
quite so protective as he wished to feel.

He managed to get her to one of the tent-poles, and placed her with her
back to it. Then he set one of his own hands against it over her head,
braced himself and stood, keeping a little space about her, ruggedly
letting the crowd surge against him as it would; no one should touch her
in rough carelessness.

"Thank you. It was rather trying in there," she said, and looked up into
his eyes with a divine gratitude.

"Please don't do that," he answered in a low voice.

"Do what?"

"Look like that."

She not only looked like that, but more so. "Young man, young man," she
said, "I fear you're wishful of turning a girl's head."

The throng was thick around them, garrulous and noisy, but they two were
more richly alone together, to his appreciation, than if they stood on
some far satellite of Mars. He was not to forget that moment, and he
kept the picture of her, as she leaned against the big blue tent-pole,
there, in his heart: the clear gray eyes lifted to his, the delicate
face with the color stealing back to her cheeks, and the brave little
figure that had run so straight to him out of the night shadows. There
was something about her, and in the moment, that suddenly touched him
with a saddening sweetness too keen to be borne; the forget-me-not
finger of the flying hour that could not come again was laid on his
soul, and he felt the tears start from his heart on their journey to his
eyes. He knew that he should always remember that moment. She knew it,
too. She put her hand to her cheek and turned away from him a little
tremulously. Both were silent.

They had been together since early morning. Plattville was proud of him.
Many a friendly glance from the folk who jostled about them favored his
suit and wished both of them well, and many lips, opening to speak to
Harkless in pa