a
log close by, looking at him.

"Stormbound?" he asked her.

"Yes. I was rowing and the wind came up."

She rose and came over to look at the dead deer.

"What beautiful animals they are!" she said. "Isn't it a pity to kill
them?"

"It's a pity, too, to kill cattle and sheep and pigs, to haul fish by
the gills out of the sea," MacRae replied; "to trap marten and mink and
fox and beaver and bear for their skins. But men must eat and women must
wear furs."

"How horribly logical you are," Betty murmured. "You make a natural
sympathy appear wishy-washy sentimentalism."

She reseated herself on the log. MacRae sat down beside her. He looked
at her searchingly. He could not keep his eyes away. A curious
inconsistency was revealed to him. He sat beside Betty, responding to
the potent stimuli of her nearness and wishing pettishly that she were a
thousand miles away, so that he would not be troubled by the magic of
her lips and eyes and unruly hair, the musical cadences of her voice.
There was a subtle quality of expectancy about her, as if she sat there
waiting for him to say something, do something, as if her mere presence
were powerful to compel him to speak and act as she desired. MacRae
realized the fantasy of those impressions. Betty sat looking at him
calmly, her hands idle in her lap. If there were in her soul any of the
turmoil that was fast rising in his, it was not outwardly manifested by
any sign whatever. For that matter, MacRae knew that he himself was
placid enough on the surface. Nor did he feel the urge of
inconsequential speech. There was no embarrassment in that mutual
silence, only the tug of a compelling desire to take her in his arms,
which he must resist.

"There are times," Betty said at last, "when you live up to your
nickname with a vengeance."

"There are times," MacRae replied slowly, "when that is the only wise
thing for a man to do."

"And you, I suppose, rather pride yourself on being wise in your day and
generation."

There was gentle raillery in her tone.

"I don't like you to be sarcastic," he said.

"I don't think you like me sarcastic or otherwise," Betty observed,
after a moment's silence.

"But I do," he protested. "That's the devil of it. I do--and you know I
do. It would be a great deal better if I didn't."

Betty's fingers began to twist in her lap. The color rose faintly in her
smooth cheeks. Her eyes turned to the sea.

"I don't know why," she said gently. "I'd