had ever been anything but radiant of
out-of-doors health. That fleck on the lungs which brought a doctor's
orders had long ago been healed by the physician of the ozone they were
breathing.

"And you remained," he said.

"And you, also," she answered.

Their own silence seemed to become a thing apart from the silence of the
infinite. It was as if both recognized a common thought that even the
Eternal Painter could not compel oblivion of the past to which they did
not return; of the faith of cities to which they had been bred. But it is
one of the Eternal Painter's rules that no one of his subjects should ask
another of his subjects why he stays on the desert. Jack was the first to
speak, and his voice returned to the casual key.

"Usually I watch the sunset while we make camp," he said. "I am very late
to-night--late beyond all habit; and sunset and sunrise do make one a
creature of habit out here. Firio and my little train will grow impatient
waiting for me."

"You mean the Indian and the burro with the silver bells that came over
the pass some time before you?"

Of course they belonged to him, she was thinking, even as she made the
inquiry. This play cowboy, with his absurdly enormous silver spurs, would
naturally put bells on his burro.

"Yes, I sent Firio with Wrath of God and Jag Ear on ahead and told him to
wait at the foot of the descent. Wrath of God will worry--he is of a
worrying nature. I must be going."

In view of the dinosaur nonsense she was already prepared for a variety
of inventional talk from him. As they started down from the pass in
single file, she leading, the sun sank behind the hills, leaving the
Eternal Painter, unhindered by a furnace glare in the centre of the
canvas, to paint with a thousand brushes in the radiant tints of the
afterglow.

"You don't like that one, O art critics!" we hear him saying. "Well, here
is another before you have adjusted your _pince-nez,_ and I will brush it
away before you have emitted your first Ah! I do not criticise. I
paint--I paint for the love of it. I paint with the pigments of the
firmament and the imagination of the universe."

The two did not talk of that sky which held their averted glances, while
knowing hoofs that bore their weight kept the path. For how can you talk
of the desert sky except in the banality of exclamations? It is _lese
majeste_ to the Eternal Painter to attempt description.

At times she looked back and their eyes met in