efuse to answer or would speak his mind without beating about the bush.

"I don't like him," said King.

Gloria looked thoughtful.

"Neither do I," she said. "Not up here in the mountains. And down in San
Francisco I thought him rather splendid. What is more, if we were
whisked back to San Francisco this minute, I'd probably think him fine
again."

She appeared interested in the consideration, and when they rode on was
silent, obviously turning the matter over and over in mind.

* * * * *

To-day were three mysteries tremblingly close to revealing themselves
one to another: the great green mystery of the woodlands; the mystery of
a man clothed in his masculinity as in an outer garment; the tender
mystery of a young girl athrill with romance, effervescent with youth,
her own thoughts half veiled from herself, her instincts alive and
urgent, and often all in confusion. How could a man like Mark King quite
understand a girl like Gloria? How could a girl like Gloria, with all of
her surety of her own decisions, understand a man like King? Each
glimpsed that day much of the other's true character, and yet all the
while the mainsprings were just out of sight, unguessed, undreamed of.

At Gloria's age, if one be a girl and very pretty and made much of by
adoring parents and a host of boys and men, the world is an extremely
nice place inhabited exclusively by individuals pressing forward to do
her reverence. She is beautiful, she is vivacious, filled with delight;
she is a sparkling fountainhead of joy. She is so superabundantly
supplied with eager happiness that she radiates happiness. If she thinks
a very great deal of herself, so for that matter does every other
individual in the world; it is merely that with all of her
sophistication she remains much more naive than she would ever believe;
she is a coquette because she is female; she is pleased with herself and
with the high excuse that every one else is pleased with her. Hence she
demands adoration as a right. If she rides on a street-car she fully
expects that the conductor will regard her admiringly and that the
motorman will turn his head after her. She doesn't expect to marry
either of these gentlemen; she does not particularly require their
flattering attentions.... Gloria did not expect to marry Archie or Teddy
or Mr. Gratton; she had no thought of being any one's wife; that term,
after all, at Gloria's age, is a drab and humdrum