s."

"You are sure I'll not trespass?"

Elise looked up at him.

"That's not fair. I was mad when I said that."

She turned and hurriedly pushed through the matted bushes that grew
beside the stream. There was a kind of nervous restlessness which
Firmstone did not recall at their former meeting. They emerged from the
bushes into a large arena bare of trees. It was completely hidden from
the trail by a semicircle of tall spruces which, sweeping from the cliff
on either side of the fall, bent in graceful curves to meet at the
margin of the dividing brook. Moss-grown boulders, marked into miniature
islands by cleaving threads of clear, cold water, were half hidden by
the deep pink primroses, serried-massed about them. Creamy cups of
marshmallows, lifted above the succulent green of fringing leaves, hid
the threading lines of gliding water. On the outer border clustered
tufts of delicate azure floated in the thin, pure air, veiling modest
gentians. Moss and primrose, leaf and branch held forth jewelled fingers
that sparkled in the light, while overhead the slanting sunbeams broke
in iridescent bands against the beaten spray of the falling water. The
air, surcharged with blending colours, spoke softly sibilant of visions
beyond the power of words, of exaltation born not of the flesh, of
opening gates with wider vistas into which only the pure in heart can
enter. The girl stood with dreamy eyes, half-parted lips, an unconscious
pose in perfect harmony with her surroundings.

As Firmstone stood silently regarding the scene before him he was
conscious of a growing regret, almost repentance, for the annoyance that
he had felt at this second meeting. Yet he was right in harbouring the
annoyance. He felt no vulgar pride in that at their first meeting he had
unconsciously turned the girl's open hostility to admiration, or at
least to tolerance of himself. But she belonged to the Blue Goose, and
between the Blue Goose and the Rainbow Company there was open war.
Suppose that in him Elise did find a pleasure for which she looked in
vain among her associates; a stimulant to her better nature that
hitherto had been denied her? That was no protection to her. Even her
unconscious innocence was a weapon of attack rather than a shield of
defence. She and she alone would be the one to suffer. For this reason
Firmstone had put her from his mind after their first meeting, and for
this reason he had felt annoyance when she had again placed