m
of Angela's companion and tripped away with her.

Jim was horrified. He looked round seeking for some way of escape, but
there was none. Angela's face relaxed in a cold smile as she realized the
terrible nervousness of this big uncouth man. It pleased her somewhat to
feel that she was the cause of it.

"You are a member of my brother's club, aren't you?" she asked.

"Yep--yes," he stuttered.

He wondered if he ought to offer his arm as Claude had done to the other
girl, and escort her back to the house; but he dare not. There was a seat
near by. Angela sank into it.

"Won't you sit down?" she asked.

He did so, with a sigh of relief. He was more at his ease sitting than
standing. For the first time in his life he was ashamed of his size.
Angela's delicate limbs and hands made his, by contrast, appear
elephantine.

"Have you been long in England?"

"Few months."

"And what do you think of it?"

Here was a question that was easy enough to answer.

"I guess it's a cute little country, but it ain't big enough for a man to
breathe in. There's no wind, no sunshine. And the people are as cold as
the climate."

Angela laughed.

"So we are cold?"

"Oysters. I came the hul way from Devonshire to London in a train with
another guy--man. 'Good-morning,' says I. 'Good-morning,' says he--and
that's all there was to it. It beats me, this frostiness--ain't natural."

Angela winced at the speech. The mutilated Anglo-Saxon caused her almost
physical pain, yet the voice was musical enough and deep as a bassoon.

"All you Americans say the same thing."

"But I ain't American. I was born in Cornwall. Went to Colorado in '82 and
sailed round in a prairie schooner, with wild Injuns after our scalps. I
reckon that was no picnic for my people. I was a little fellow then--not
big enough to tell an Injun from a bear. We didn't find gold, but we found
God's own country. Wal, I can't remember much about it--thank God, I can't
remember much."

She looked at him, amazed by the tenseness of his words.

"What don't you wish to remember?"

His brows contracted and the big hands closed till the knuckles almost
penetrated the skin that covered them.

"The Injuns got us in the end," he said huskily. "I jest remember the huge
red sun going down on the prairie, with the wagon and two tents down by a
stream, where the horses were watering. There was a kind o' grotto affair
beyond the stream. Old Sam, the driver, came and yanked m