rmined not to learn? Why do I have to
grow grapes when it would be the greatest joy of my life to know that
I'd never have to see, touch, taste, or even smell another grape in this
world or the next?"

She turned toward him. A late Winter sunset shimmered in the west like
some pale, transparent cloth of gold hung from the walls of heaven, but
the kindly light lent no beauty to her face. Rosemary's eyes were grey
and lustreless, her hair ashen, and almost without colour. Her features
were irregular and her skin dull and lifeless. She had not even the
indefinable freshness that is the divine right of youth. Her mouth
drooped wistfully at the corners, and even the half-discouraged dimple
in her chin looked like a dent or a scar.

The bare hands that lay listlessly in her lap were rough and red from
much uncongenial toil. He looked at her for a moment, still absorbed in
himself, then, as he noted the pathos in every line of her face and
figure, the expression of his face subtly changed. His hand closed
quickly over hers.

[Sidenote: Their Moods]

"Forgive me, Rosemary--I'm a brute. I have no right to inflict my moods
upon you."

"Why not? Don't I bring mine to you?"

"Sometimes--not often."

"Let's get them out where we can look them over," she suggested,
practically. "What do you hate most?"

"Grapes," he replied, readily, "and then children who aren't interested
in the alphabet. All day I've been saying: 'See the cat. Can the cat
run? Yes, the cat can run.' Of course they could repeat it after me, but
they couldn't connect it in any way with the printed page. I sympathised
strongly with an unwashed child of philosophical German lineage who
inquired, earnestly: 'Teacher, what's the good of dat?'"

"What else do you hate?"

"Being tied up. Set down in one little corner of the world and being
obliged to stay in it. I know to a certainty just what's going to happen
to-morrow and next day and the day after that. Point out any day on the
calendar, months ahead, and I can tell you just what I'll be doing.
Nothing is uncertain but the weather."

[Sidenote: His Looks]

"Some people pray for anchorage," she said.

"I never have," he flashed back. "I want the open sea--tide and tempest
and grey surges, with the wind in my face and the thrill of danger in my
heart! I want my blood to race through my body; I want to be hungry,
cold, despairing, afraid--everything! God, how I want to live!"

He paced back and forth r