d, though she
wrenched herself free from him, something of the fire in his eyes was
reflected in hers.

'Good afternoon, Mr. Cyclone,' she said quite as carelessly as his
sudden appearance permitted her vaguely disturbed senses. 'What are
you going to do? Run over me?'

He laughed joyously.

'I could eat you,' he told her enthusiastically. 'You look just that
good to me. Lord, but I'm hungry for the sight of you!'

'That's nice of you to say so,' Helen answered. And now she was quite
all that she had planned to be; as coolly indifferent as only a girl
can be when something has begun to sing in her heart and she has made
up her mind that no one must hear the singing. 'But I fail to see why
this very excellent imitation of a man who hasn't seen his best friend
for a couple of centuries.'

'It has been that long, every bit of it--longer.'

Helen's smile was that stock smile to be employed in answer to an
inconsequential compliment paid by a chance acquaintance.

'Three or four days is hardly an eternity,' she retorted.

'Three or four days? Why, it's been over nine! Nearly ten.'

She appeared both amazed and incredulous. Then she waved the matter
aside as of no moment.

'I was going out to the spring for a drink,' she said. 'Will you wait
here? Father will be in soon.'

'I'll come along, if there's room for two.' He picked up his parcel,
which Helen noted without seeming to note anything. 'Look here,
Helen,' as she started on before him to the thicket of willows, 'aren't
you the least little bit glad to see me?'

'Why, of course I am,' she assured him politely. 'And papa was
wondering about you only this morning. Isn't it pretty here?'

He admitted without enthusiasm that it was. He had not seen anything
but her. She had on a blue dress; she wore a wide hat; her eyes were
nothing less than maddening. He recalled the prettiness of Barbee's
new girl at the lunch counter; he remembered Sanchia's regular
features; these two were simply not of the same order of beings as
Helen. No woman was. He strode behind her as she flitted on up the
trail and felt thrilling through him an odd commingling of reverence,
of adoration, of infinite yearning.

She came to the spring and stopped, watching him eagerly though she
pretended to be looking anywhere but at him. And for a moment Howard,
marvelling at the spot, let his eyes wander from her. The spring had
been cleaned out and rimmed with big flat ro