s companion as he talked. She was, as always, quite
unself-conscious. She sat most becomingly framed by the lofty rise of
oak and redwood and maple trees about her. Her sombrero had slipped
back on her braids, and the honest, untouched beauty of her thoughtful
face struck Paul forcibly. He wondered if she had ever been in
love--what her manner would be to the man she loved.

"What did you come for, Paul?" She was ending some long sentence with
the question.

"Come here?" Paul said. "Oh, Lord, there seemed to be reasons enough,
though I can't remember now why I ever thought I'd stay."

"You came straight from college?"

"No," he said, a little uneasily; "no. I finished three years ago. You
see, my mother married an awfully rich old guy named Steele, the last
year I was at college; and he gave me a desk in his office. He has two
sons, but they're not my kind. Nice fellows, you know, but they work
twenty hours a day, and don't belong to any clubs,--they'll both die
rich, I guess,--and whenever I was late, or forgot something, or beat
it early to catch a boat, they'd go to the old man. And he'd ask mother
to speak to me."

"I see," said Patricia.

"After a while he got me a job with a friend of his in a Philadelphia
iron-works," said the boy; "but that was a ROTTEN job. So I came back
to New York; and I'd written a sketch for an amateur theatrical thing,
and a manager there wanted me to work it up--said he'd produce it. I
tinkered away at that for a while, but there was no money in it, and
Steele sent me out to see how I'd like working in one of the Humboldt
lumber camps. I thought that sounded good. But I got my leg broken the
first week, and had to wire him from the hospital for money. So, when I
got well again, he sent me a night wire about this job, and I went to
see Kahn the next day, and came up here."

"I see," she said again. "And you don't think you'll stay?"

"Honestly, I can't, Patricia. Honest--you don't know what it is! I
could stand Borneo, or Alaska, or any place where the climate and
customs and natives stirred things up once in a while. But this is like
being dead! Why, it just makes me sick to see the word 'New York' on
the covers of magazines--I'm going crazy here."

She nodded seriously.

"Yes, I know. But you've got to do SOMETHING. And since your course was
electrical engineering--! And the next job mayn't be half so easy, you
know--!"

"Well, it'll be a little nearer Broadway, believe me