she returned seriously. "If you were
that kind of a man I shouldn't want you in the book. How do you know
that I haven't told you for the purpose of discovering if you would be
affected in that manner?"

He scratched his head, contemplating her gravely. "I reckon you're
travelin' too fast for me, ma'am," he said.

His expression of frank amusement was good to see. He stood before
her, plainly ready to surrender. Absolutely boyish, he seemed to
her--a grown-up boy to be sure, but with a boy's enthusiasms, impulses,
and generosity. Yet in his eyes was something that told of maturity,
of conscious power, of perfect trust in his ability to give a good
account of himself, even in this country where these qualities
constituted the chief rule of life.

A strange emotion stirred her, a sudden quickening of the pulse told
her that something new had come into her life. She drew a deep,
startled breath and felt her cheeks crimsoning. She swiftly turned her
head and gazed out over the flat, leaving him standing there, scarcely
comprehending her embarrassment.

"I reckon you've been writin' some of that book, ma'am," he said,
seeing the papers lying on the rock beside her. "I don't see why you
should want to write a Western story. Do folks in the East get
interested in knowin' what's goin' on out here?"

She suddenly thought of herself. Had she found it interesting? She
looked swiftly at him, appraising him from a new viewpoint, feeling a
strange, new interest in him.

"It would be strange if they didn't," she returned. "Why, it is the
only part of the country in which there still remains a touch of
romance. You must remember that this is a young country; that its
history began at a comparatively late date. England can write of its
feudal barons; France of its ancient aristocracy; but America can look
back only to the Colonial period--and the West."

"Mebbe you're right," he said, not convinced. "But I expect there
ain't a heap of romance out here. Leastways, if there is it manages to
keep itself pretty well hid."

She smiled, thinking of the romance that surrounded him--of which,
plainly, he was not conscious. To him, romance meant the lights, the
crowds, the amusements, the glitter and tinsel of the cities of the
East, word of which had come to him through various channels. To her
these things were no longer novel,--if they had ever been so--and so
for her romance must come from the new, the unusual,