of white teeth.

Kate tucked the flowers into her habit, and held out her hand to him.
"I've been ordered to be friends with you. I do not think it will be
hard," she said.

Kildare laughed again as the other bent formally over her hand. "Thank
Heaven, I'm no Frenchman! A woman's hand, in a glove, must be about as
thrilling to kiss as a mare's hoof. Try her lips, man! You'll find them
better," he urged; and roared with laughter to see them both blushing.

Benoix rode with them the rest of the way, pointing out to the girl the
beauties of her kingdom; mares nuzzling their new-born foals; the tender
green of young crops; cloud shadows drifting over the rolling miles that
darkled like ocean beneath a wind; a pair of mocking-birds at play,
their gray wings flashing circles of white. For some time the hills had
been marching toward them, and at last they reached the first. It was
low, and covered with juniper-bushes. On the crest of it stood a house,
grim and stanch as when the pioneer Kildare built it, facing undaunted
through the years the brunt of every storm that swept the plateau. Its
trees were bent and twisted by the giant grasp of many winds.

"You see why they call it 'Storm,'" said Benoix.

Kildare had left them, spurring forward with sudden eagerness,
whistling. Crashing down through the underbrush came two enormous
bloodhounds, baying like mad things. Kildare flung himself from his
horse and met them with a shout, seizing them in his arms, romping and
tumbling about with the great, frantic beasts until all three were
covered with mud and slaver. It was a rather terrific spectacle. Kate
thought of a bas-relief she had seen somewhere of a satyr playing with
leopards.

"The only things in the world Basil loves!" murmured the Creole; adding
quickly, "or did love. Do not be startled, Mrs. Kildare. Bloodhounds are
greatly maligned. Jove and Juno, there, are as kind as kittens, despite
their rough ways. Here you will find many rough ways," he spoke as if in
warning. "It is a man's place. But you will change it!"

He was mistaken. After all her years there, Storm was still "a man's
place." Kate had never found the time, nor the heart, to make a home of
it.

Benoix left them, and Kate and Basil mounted to their house alone. Seen
close at hand, it proved to be not without a certain charm, despite its
weather-beaten grimness. No house can lack personality that has grown
generation by generation with the race it sh