line of color, and trembled
constantly with smiles. These he tried to restrain from time to time,
with an air of pinning down the corners of his mouth.

She had noted so much while he poured out the water, and now he came to
her, walking carefully so as not to thunder with his boots.

"You must have been frightened," he said, and his eyes sought hers with
a young, sorry look.

"Not after we left the woods; it wasn't funny among those trees."

He brightened. "I'd always thought women don't like to look funny."

"They don't," said the lady incisively, "no more than men do."

"But you can laugh at yourself," he insisted.

"Can you?" She meditated a swift exposure of his own absurdity at their
meetings in the valley, but forbore and spoke instead of his pictures.

"You must show me your work," she said.

For a moment it seemed that she had lost all she had gained with him. He
patently meditated a flying leap through the door and an instant
vanishing into the nearest thicket. She had an impulse to put out a hand
and secure him by the coat. But he held his ground, though all his
geniality was suddenly veiled, while he vibrated behind the curtain,
scheming escape, like a child harried by invading grown people in its
secret playhouse.

She looked cunningly away, examining a rip in her glove.

"I tried to paint a little myself once," she essayed craftily. Nothing
came of it. He remained in ambush.

"But it wasn't in me," she continued, and was conscious that he at least
took a breath.

"You see, I hadn't anything but the liking," she went on, "and so I had
the sense to give it up. Still, I learned enough to help me see other
people's work better--and to be interested in pictures."

"Did anyone try to teach you?" he asked.

"Yes, but they couldn't make me paint; they could only make me see."

"Perhaps you could tell me some things," he admitted at last, "if you've
tried." He paltered a little longer. Then, "Ben Crider says this is the
best thing I've ever done," and he quickly took a canvas from against
the wall and placed it on a chair before her.

She considered it so quietly that he warmed a little, like a routed
animal lulled once more into security by the stillness.

"Do you get the right light?" he asked anxiously.

She nodded, and managed a faint, abstracted smile, indicative of
pleasure. She heard him emit a sigh of returning ease. He spoke in
almost his former confiding tone.

"That's our lake, y