mer. Imagine violets on violets, thousands of them, springing
everywhere in the vivid new grass. You can't avoid crushing some, no
matter how carefully you pick your steps. There's a rocky seat half-way up
on a level spur, where you might rest, and I would fill your lap with
those violets, big, long-stemmed ones, till the blue lights danced in your
eyes."

They were doing that now, and her laugh fluted softly through the wood.
For that moment the barrier between them lost substance; it became the
sheerest tissue, a curtain of gauze. Then the aloofness for which he
waited settled on her. She looked away, her glance again seeking the
stream. "I can't imagine anything more delightful," she said.

A rough and steep breadth of road opened before them, and for a while the
bays held his attention, then in a better stretch, he felt her swift
side-glance again reading his face. "Do you know," she said, "you are not
at all the kind of man I was led to expect."

"No?" He turned interestedly, with the amusement shading the corners of
his mouth. "What did you hear?"

"Why, I heard that you were the hardest man in the world to know; the most
elusive, shyest."

Tisdale's laugh rang, a low note from the depths of his mellow heart. "And
you believed that?"

She nodded, and he caught the blue sparkles under her drooping lids. "You
know how Mrs. Feversham has tried her best to know you; how she sent you
invitations repeatedly to dinner or for an evening at Juneau, Valdez,
Fairbanks, and you invariably made some excuse."

"Oh, but that's easily explained. Summers, when she timed her visits to
Alaska, I was busy getting my party into the field. The working season up
there is short."

"But winters, at Seattle and in Washington even, it has been the same."

"Winters, why, winters, I have my geological reports to get in shape for
the printer; interminable proofs to go over; and there are so many
necessary people to meet in connection with my work. Then, too, if the
season has been spent in opening country of special interest, I like to
prepare a paper for the geographical society; that keeps me in touch with
old friends."

"Old friends," she repeated after a moment. "Do you know it was one of
them, or rather one of your closest friends, who encouraged my delusion in
regard to you?"

"No, how was it?"

"Why, he said you were the hardest man in the world to turn, a man of iron
when once you made up your mind, but that Mrs. Feversh