Her
head and figure presented themselves to him as a silhouette, and somehow
that suited him better than to see her features distinctly; it seemed to
keep their relation back where it had always been, a sort of impersonal
outline.

Elizabeth, for her part, thought that, for all his shabby clothes and
thin, sunburnt face, her father was more manifestly a gentleman than any
man she had ever seen.

She learned several things in the course of that conversation. She found
that when she touched upon her reasons for coming to him, her feeling
that they were only two and that they ought to be together, his eyes
wandered and he looked bored; when she spoke of her mother he seemed
uncomfortable.

Was she like her mother? No, he said, she was not in the least like her
mother; he did not see that she took after anybody in particular. Then,
as if to escape the subject, was her Uncle Nicholas as rabid a
teetotaller as ever?

He liked best to hear about her school days and of the gay doings of the
past year, her first year of "society."

"And you don't like society?" he asked at last, with a quizzical glance
at her pretty profile. She had turned her eyes from the contemplation of
his face, and seemed to be conjuring up interesting visions out of the
darkness.

"Yes, I do!" she said with decision.

"You won't get much society out here," he remarked, and his spirits
rose again. Of course she would be bored to death without it.

"I like some things better than society," she replied.

"For instance?"

She turned her face full upon him, and boldly said, "You."

"The deuce you do!" he cried, and was instantly conscious that it was
the second time that he had forgotten himself.

A little crinkle appeared in the silhouette of a cheek, and she said, "I
do like to hear you say 'the deuce.' I don't believe Uncle Nicholas ever
said 'the deuce' in his life."

"Nick was always a bore," Stanwood rejoined, more pleased with the
implied disparagement of his pet aversion than with the very out-spoken
compliment to himself.

"I think Uncle Nicholas has done his duty by me," Elizabeth remarked
demurely, "but I am glad he has got through. I came of age last Monday,
the day I started for Colorado."

"When did you decide to come?"

"About five years ago. I always meant to start on the 7th of June of
this year."

"You make your plans a long way ahead. What is the next step on the
program?"

"I haven't the least idea."

"For such a