onfusion. It was
like a kaleidoscope, for the scene shifted constantly and was never
quite the same.

Keith, secure in her absorption, slid sidewise in the saddle and studied
her face, knowing all the while that he was simply storing up trouble
for himself. But it is not given a man to flee human nature, and the
fellow who could sit calmly beside Beatrice and not stare at her if
the opportunity offered must certainly have the blood of a fish in his
veins. I will tell you why.

Beatrice was tall, and she was slim, and round, and tempting, with the
most tantalizing curves ever built to torment a man. Her hair was soft
and brown, and it waved up from the nape of her neck without those
short, straggling locks and thin growth at the edge which mar so many
feminine heads; and the sharp contrast of shimmery brown against ivory
white was simply irresistible. Had her face been less full of charm,
Keith might have been content to gaze and gaze at that lovely hair line.
As it was, his eyes wandered to her brows, also distinctly marked, as
though outlined first with a pencil in the fingers of an artist who
understood. And there were her lashes, dark and long, and curled up at
the ends; and her cheek, with its changing, come-and-go coloring; her
mouth, with its upper lip creased deeply in the middle--so deeply that a
bit more would have been a defect--and with an odd little dimple at one
corner; luckily, it was on the side toward him, so that he might look
at it all he wanted to for once; for it was always there, only growing
deeper and wickeder when she spoke or laughed. He could not see her
eyes, for they were turned away, but he knew quite well the color; he
had settled that point when he looked up from coiling his rope the day
she came. They were big, baffling, blue-brown eyes, the like of which he
had never seen before in his life--and he had thought he had seen
every color and every shade under the sun. Thinking of them and their
wonderful deeps and shadows, he got hungry for a sight of them. And
suddenly she turned to ask a question, and found him staring at her, and
surprised a look in his eyes he did not know was there.

For ten pulse-beats they stared, and the cheeks of Beatrice grew red as
healthy young blood could paint them; Keith's were the same, only that
his blood showed darkly through the tan. What question had been on her
tongue she forgot to ask. Indeed, for the time, I think she forgot
the whole English langua