hen the desire of love is upon them. He
did not dream how ardent and masculine his gaze was, nor that the warm
flame of it was affecting the alchemy of her spirit. Her penetrative
virginity exalted and disguised his own emotions, elevating his thoughts
to a star-cool chastity, and he would have been startled to learn that
there was that shining out of his eyes, like warm waves, that flowed
through her and kindled a kindred warmth. She was subtly perturbed by
it, and more than once, though she knew not why, it disrupted her train
of thought with its delicious intrusion and compelled her to grope for
the remainder of ideas partly uttered. Speech was always easy with her,
and these interruptions would have puzzled her had she not decided that
it was because he was a remarkable type. She was very sensitive to
impressions, and it was not strange, after all, that this aura of a
traveller from another world should so affect her.

The problem in the background of her consciousness was how to help him,
and she turned the conversation in that direction; but it was Martin who
came to the point first.

"I wonder if I can get some advice from you," he began, and received an
acquiescence of willingness that made his heart bound. "You remember the
other time I was here I said I couldn't talk about books an' things
because I didn't know how? Well, I've ben doin' a lot of thinkin' ever
since. I've ben to the library a whole lot, but most of the books I've
tackled have ben over my head. Mebbe I'd better begin at the beginnin'.
I ain't never had no advantages. I've worked pretty hard ever since I
was a kid, an' since I've ben to the library, lookin' with new eyes at
books--an' lookin' at new books, too--I've just about concluded that I
ain't ben reading the right kind. You know the books you find in cattle-
camps an' fo'c's'ls ain't the same you've got in this house, for
instance. Well, that's the sort of readin' matter I've ben accustomed
to. And yet--an' I ain't just makin' a brag of it--I've ben different
from the people I've herded with. Not that I'm any better than the
sailors an' cow-punchers I travelled with,--I was cow-punchin' for a
short time, you know,--but I always liked books, read everything I could
lay hands on, an'--well, I guess I think differently from most of 'em.

"Now, to come to what I'm drivin' at. I was never inside a house like
this. When I come a week ago, an' saw all this, an' you, an' your
mot