k like that
"how-do-you-do" is as good a catchphrase as the next to keep his tongue
discreet.

"I do very well," she told him, smiling at him, maddening him, "I always
do well, here in my garden,--but you, you put my sense of well-being to
shame. You look so glad!"

"I am the gladdest man on earth," Bruce told her, knowing chiefly that
he had her hand in his. He barely remembered in time that she was rich
in gold and lands and cattle, and that he was poor, and that the
positivism of his personality had already incurred the ill-will of her
father. "Still, I don't think there is any doubt in the world how it is
all going to end," he said hazily. He still had her hand. She had the
hardest hand to put down that he had ever taken up.

"I don't quite follow? All what?" She bit her lip; her eyes flashed off
across the Di, bright and swift as mating birds, as she drew her hand
gently away.

"I was only thinking that a man may go on and on through so many
meaningless years, of no special significance to himself or to anybody
else and then suddenly,--think everything is going to be all right some
day." He clasped his hands and leaned on the other side of the
vine-covered stump and looked at her wishfully, and she laughed at him,
with her eyes still on the pale river.

"How do you like my garden?" she asked divertingly. For answer he shut
his eyes and breathed deeply. "Oh, how good!" she cried, satisfied,
"that's the only way really to follow the path of fragrance,--that's my
own way!" He blessed his stars that he had sniffed at the roses. "Where
did the path lead you?" she queried, as he opened his eyes dreamily upon
her golden beauty. "Into heaven," he murmured with sublime conviction,
and she clasped her slender hands, delighted at their mystical
congeniality.

"I am so glad that we like the same thing," she continued, hurrying a
little; "haven't you noticed?--we both like the garden,--and we both
like Piney. When did you see Piney?"

"Piney? Oh, I see Piney often." He rather wished that she had not
mentioned Piney. Since he had come to know the tramp-boy better his
first ache for him had become sharper and sharper. "Piney and I were out
on the hills together only yesterday. Poor Piney!"

"Why," she took his hand and led him forward through a tangle of
rose-bushes; she would not look at him, but the bewildering sweetness of
her hair, her gown, the curve of her cheek came back to him--"why _poor_
Piney?" She was guidi