ecause I
eat with a fork, do you think my heart is really any different from that
of the cave-man from whom it descended to me, or that your heart is any
different from that of the girl he wanted, who kept him guessing and
guessing until he couldn't stand it, and then turned and ran and ran
through the woods, and swam rivers and climbed trees and jumped down
precipices until he caught her?"

There was something in Wilmot's lowered brows, a certain jerking, broken
quality in his utterance, that was new to Barbara--that at once
frightened her a little, and caused her heart to beat with a sort of
wild triumph. But she did not guess that the old cave-man was at that
moment actually looking out through her old friend's eye-places, and
that ten thousand years of civilization are but a thin varnish over the
rough and splendid masterpiece that God made in his image.

There was a knock at the door. It was Scupper returning. He had left his
beloved pipe (on purpose). His shrewd, bloodshot little eyes took in the
situation at a glance. In two beats his little heart was wild
with jealousy.

"I beg _everybody's_ pardon," he said. "I didn't know, I--er--wouldn't
have knocked--I--er--mean I _would_ have knocked just the same."

Wilmot took one slow step toward the famous sculptor, then smiled,
picked up the fellow's pipe, and returned it to him. "I saw you put it
down just before you left," he said. "I think there is nothing else you
have forgotten, _is_ there? If there is I think it will be best not to
come back for it until I have gone. Meanwhile you will have time to
shave and bathe and make yourself presentable."

Scupper, sure that he was not actually going to be hit, escaped with an
ease and jauntiness which he was far from feeling. And Barbara, the high
tension relieved, burst out laughing.

It was Wilmot's turn to look sullen. He had felt that the sheer animal
force of his love was holding and even moulding Barbara to his will, as
no tenderness and delicacy had ever done. But at the sculptor's
entrance, the honest if brutal cave-man had fled, like some noble savage
before a talking-machine, and left in a state of civilized helplessness
a young gentleman who could not find anything to say for himself.

As for Barbara, she had never seen Wilmot look as he had looked, or
heard those quivering, broken tones in his voice. The savage in her had
gone out to him with open arms and, behold, the primal force which,
standing like