, and had your easy, airy,
inconsequential way with women. But I won't let you have it with me, my
casual friend. Don't hope for it."

"What have I ever done----"

"Exactly what you're doing now to Rosalie--what you did to a dozen women
this winter--what you did to me"--she turned and looked at him--"the
first time I ever set eyes on you since we were children together. I
know you are not to be taken seriously; almost everybody knows that! And
all the same, Duane, I've thought about you a lot in these two months up
here, and--I'm happy that you've come at last.... You won't mistake me
and try to be sentimental with me, will you?"

She laid her slim, sun-tanned hand on his arm; they walked on together
through the woodland where green bramble sprays glimmered through
clustering tree trunks and the fading light turned foliage and
undergrowth to that vivid emerald which heralds dusk.

"Duane," she said, "I'm dreadfully restless and I cannot account for
it.... Perhaps motherless girls are never quite normal; I don't know.
But, lately, the world has seemed very big and threatening around me....
Scott is nice to me, usually; Kathleen adorable.... I--I don't know what
I want, what it is I miss."

Her hand still rested lightly on his arm as they walked forward. She
was speaking at intervals almost as though talking in an undertone to
herself:

"I'm in--perplexity. I've been troubled. Perhaps that is what makes me
tolerant of you; perhaps that's why I'm glad to see you.... Trouble is a
new thing to me. I thought I had troubles--perhaps I had as a child. But
this is deeper, different, disquieting."

"Are you in love?" he asked.

"No."

"Really?"

"Really."

"Then what----"

"I can't tell you. Anyway, it won't last. It can't, ... Can it?"

She looked around at him, and they both laughed a little at her
inconsequence.

"I feel better for pretending to tell you, anyway," she said, as they
halted before high iron gates hung between two granite posts from which
the woven wire fence of the game park, ten feet high, stretched away
into the darkening woods on either hand.

"This is the Sachem's Gate," she said; "here is the key; unlock it,
please."

Inside they crossed a stream dashing between tanks set with fern and
tall silver birches.

"Hurryon Brook," she said. "Isn't it a beauty? It pours into the Gray
Water a little farther ahead. We must hasten, or it will be too dark to
see the trout."

Twice again they