l do," said Professor Smawl, coldly, as we raced about like a
pair of distracted kittens. The chilling voice broke the spell; I
dropped Professor Van Twiller's hand and sat down on a bowlder, aching
with wrath.

Late that afternoon we halted beside a tiny lake, deep in the unknown
wilderness, where purple and scarlet bergamot choked the shores and
the spruce-partridge strutted fearlessly under our very feet. Here we
pitched our two tents. The afternoon sun slanted through the pines;
the lake glittered; acres of golden brake perfumed the forest silence,
broken only at rare intervals by the distant thunder of a partridge
drumming.

Professor Smawl ate heavily and retired to her tent to lie torpid
until evening. William drove the unloaded mules into an intervale full
of sun-cured, fragrant grasses; I sat down beside Professor Van
Twiller.

The wilderness is electric. Once within the influence of its currents,
human beings become positively or negatively charged, violently
attracting or repelling each other.

"There is something the matter with this air," said Professor Van
Twiller. "It makes me feel as though I were desperately enamoured of
the entire human race."

She leaned back against a pine, smiling vaguely, and crossing one knee
over the other.

Now I am not bold by temperament, and, normally, I fear ladies.
Therefore it surprised me to hear myself begin a frivolous _causerie_,
replying to her pretty epigrams with epigrams of my own, advancing to
the borderland of badinage, fearlessly conducting her and myself over
that delicate frontier to meet upon the terrain of undisguised
flirtation.

It was clear that she was out for a holiday. The seriousness and
restraints of twenty-two years she had left behind her in the
civilized world, and now, with a shrug of her young shoulders, she
unloosened her burden of reticence, dignity, and responsibility and
let the whole load fall with a discreet thud.

"Even hares go mad in March," she said, seriously. "I know you intend
to flirt with me--and I don't care. Anyway, there's nothing else to
do, is there?"

"Suppose," said I, solemnly, "I should take you behind that big tree
and attempt to kiss you!"

The prospect did not appear to appall her, so I looked around with
that sneaking yet conciliatory caution peculiar to young men who are
novices in the art. Before I had satisfied myself that neither William
nor the mules were observing us, Professor Van Twiller rose to