ods, was quite aware that
she was in love. She wondered why she had not thought of it before, and
concluded that in the prelude she had been merely fascinated by the
first enthralling man she had known. The trap-door of her heart was not
jealously guarded; nevertheless, it was not yawning for an occupant.
Just how and when Trennahan slipped in, she could not have told, but
there he certainly was, and there he would stay so long as life was in
her.

He went home with her to luncheon, and she longed to have him go, that
she might be alone with the thought of him. He left early in the
afternoon, and she locked herself in her room and sat for hours staring
into the tree-tops swimming in their blue haze. She was not in the least
terrified at the beginnings of tumult within her; she rather welcomed
them as the birthright of her sex. In this first stage, she hardly cared
whether Trennahan were in love with her or not, having none of the
instinct of the huntress and her imagination being a slow one. It was
enough that she should see him for many hours alone during this dreamy
exquisite summer, that she should look constantly into the cold eyes
that had their own power to thrill. That he was not the orthodox lover
in appearance, manner, nor age pleased her the better. She was not like
other girls, therefore it was fitting that she should find her mate
among the odd ones of earth. That there might be others like him in the
great world whence he came, that he might have loved and been loved by
women of the world, never occurred to her. She was content, having found
her other part, and wove no histories of the past nor future.

But as the weeks went on and their intimacy grew, she accepted the fact
that he loved her before the disposition to speculate had arrived in the
wake of love. During the hours that they spent rambling through the
woods, or in whatever fashion pleased their mood, although he did not
startle her by definite word or act, he managed to convey that their
future was assured, that she was his, and that in his own time he should
claim her. By the time this dawn broke, her imagination was beating at
its flood-gates, and shortly broke loose. Thereafter when she was not
with Trennahan in the present, she was his in a future built on the
foundations of all she had read and all that instinct taught her. She
had no wish that the present should change; it was enough that it
suggested the inevitable future. She was happy,