f passing years can never crush entirely dead. He
loved to rehearse her words, her gestures, the quick play of sympathetic
emotions as one by one he reviewed them.

"You! I am surprised--I had not known--" She had become confused in her
greeting, and a color that she would have given worlds to suppress crept
slowly through her cheeks.

"I am surprised, too--and delighted," he had returned. "The little boy
came to me in the field, boasting of his braces." Then they had both
laughed, and she had asked him to come in and tell about himself.

The living-room, as he recalled it, was marked by the simplicity
appropriate to the summer home, with just a dash of elegance in the
furnishings to suggest that simplicity was a matter of choice and not of
necessity. After soothing Wilson's sobs, which had broken out afresh in
his mother's arms, she had turned him over to a maid and drawn a chair
convenient to Grant's.

"You see, I am a farmer now," he had said, apologetically regarding his
overalls.

"What changes have come! But I don't understand; I thought you were
rich--very rich--and that you were promoting some kind of settlement
scheme. Frank has spoken of it."

"All of which is true. You see, I am a man of whims. I choose to live
joyously. I refuse to fit into a ready-made niche in society. I do what
other people don't do--mainly for that reason. I have some peculiar
notions--"

"I know. You told me." And it was then that their eyes had met and they
had fallen into a momentary silence.

"But why are you farming?" she had exclaimed, brightly.

"For several reasons. First, the world needs food. Food is the greatest
safeguard--I would almost say the only safeguard--against anarchy
and chaos. Then, I want to learn by experience; to prove by my own
demonstrations that my theories are workable--or that they're not. And
then, most of all, I love the prairies and the open life. It's my whim,
and I follow it."

"You are very wonderful," she had murmured. And then, with startling
directness, "Are you happy?"

"As happy as I have any right to be. Happier than I have been since
childhood."

She had risen and walked to the mantelpiece; then, with an apparent
change of impulse, she had turned and faced him. He had noted that
her figure was rounder than in girlhood, her complexion paler, but the
sunlight still danced in her hair, and her reckless force had given way
to a poise that suggested infinite resources of character.