. You knew it would
become grey in middle age with no definite period of transition. She
never buttoned her heavy welted gloves but wore them back over her hand,
like a cuff, very English. You felt there must be a riding crop
concealed about her somewhere. Perhaps up her spine.

As has been said, there was always a little flurry when she came into
the big store that had made millions for her father. It would be
nonsense to suppose that Jessie Heath ever deliberately set out to
attract a man who was an employee in that store. But it is pleasant and
soothing to be admired, and to have a fine pair of eyes look fine things
into one's own (shell-rimmed) ones. And, after all, the Jessie Heaths of
this world are walked with, and golfed with, and ridden with, and
tennised with, and told that they're wonderful pals. But it's the Myras
that are made love to. So now, when Florian Sykes looked at her, and
flushed a little, and said, "I suppose there are a lot of lucky ones
going along with you on this trip, Miss--Jessie," she flushed, too, and
flicked her boot with her riding crop--No, no! I forgot. She didn't have
a riding crop. Well, anyway she gave the effect of flicking her boot
with her riding crop, and said:

"Would you like to go?"

"Would I like to go----!" He choked over it. Then he sighed, and smiled
rather wistfully. "That's needlessly cruel of you, Miss Jessie."

"Maybe it's not so cruel as you think," Jessie Heath answered. "Did you
make out that list?"

"I spent practically all of yesterday on it." Which we know was a lie
because, look, wasn't he with Myra?

They went over the list together. Fishing tackle, tents, pocket-flashes,
puttees, ponchos, chocolate, quirts, slickers, matches, medicine-case,
sweaters, cooking utensils, blankets. It grew longer, and longer. Their
heads came close together over it. And they trailed from department to
department, laughing and talking together. And the two Maine ex-guides
and the clerk who boasted he knew the Rockies like the palm of his hand,
said to one another, "Get on to Nature's Rival trying to make a hit with
Jessie."

Meanwhile Jessie was saying, "Of course you know the Rockies, being a
Western man, and all."

Florian smiled rather deprecatingly. "Queer part of it is I don't know
the Rockies so well--" with an emphasis on the word Rockies that led one
to think his more noteworthy feats of altitude had been accomplished
about the Alps, the Pyrenees, the Andes, and