re arms, Bella." He was pulling
his own shirt-sleeves down over his glistening bronze forearms as he
spoke.

"We can't talk in the house," she said, "and I've got to talk. I--Do you
know what Hugh's doing--what he's telling that girl? What he's letting
her believe?"

Pete shook his head, but at the same time turned his blue eyes away from
her toward the glowing west.

"Lies," said Bella. She laughed a short, explosive laugh. "He's got his
ideal audience at last--a blind one. She thinks he's young and handsome
and heroic. Pete, she thinks he's a hero. She thinks he's buried himself
out here for the sake of somebody else. Oh, it's a regular romance, and
it's been going on for hours--it's still going on. By now he believes
it all himself. He's putting in the details. And Sylvie: 'Oh!' she's
saying, and 'Ah, Mr. Garth, how you must have suffered! How
wonderful you are!' And--look at me Pete--do you want to know what we
are--according to him--you and I?"

He did not turn his eyes from the west, even when she shook his arm.

"I'm a dried-up mummy of a woman--faithful?--yes, I'm faithful--an old
servant. And you're a child, an overgrown bean-pole of a boy, fourteen
or fifteen years old."

The young man stood tall and still--a statue of golden youth in the
golden light--the woman clutching at his arm, her face twisted, her eyes
afire, all the colorlessness of her body and the suppressed flame of her
spirit pitilessly apparent.

"Look at me, Pete."

"Well," he sighed gently, "what of it?" He looked down at her and
smiled. "It's the first good time he's had for fifteen years. You know
we don't make him happy. I don't grudge him his joy, Bella, do you?
It can't last long, anyway. Fairy tales can't hurt her--Hugh
believes--almost--in his own inventions. She'll be going back--her
friends will be hunting for her. I'll let her think I'm a bean-pole of a
boy if it makes him any happier to have me one. And why do you care?"

She drew in her breath. "Oh, I don't suppose I care--so much," she said
haltingly. "But--think of the girl."

His eyes widened a little and fell. "The girl?"

"She's falling in love with him!"

Pete threw back his head and laughed aloud. "Oh, Bella, you know,
_that's_ funny!"

"It's not. It's tragic. It's horrible. You'll see. Watch her face."

"I have watched it." He spoke dreamily. "It's a very pretty and sweet
face."

"Pete, Hugh's robbing _you_."

"Me?"

"Yes, you're young. You're ready f