. The man had seen and studied her in many
moods. But never in one so exalted, so self-forgetful, as the present;
and to the varied new experiences of the morning was added a wholesome
sense of his own unworthiness to lay a hand upon her. In that
illumined moment he was vouchsafed a glimpse into the temple of Love; a
temple he had desecrated and defiled time and again; whose holy of
holies he had never entered, nor ever could.

"Does it really mean as much as all that to you?" he asked, still
watching her, with unusual concentration.

She nodded, and a soft light gleamed in her eyes. "Yes--as much as
that, and more--infinitely more. One's cramped mind and heart seem to
need expanding to take it all in."

Garth's smile lacked its habitual touch of cynicism.

"I am afraid even sunrise on Dynkund in your company has no power to
lift me to such flights of ecstasy."

"I never supposed it had, you poor fellow! I wouldn't change souls
with you for half a kingdom. Nearly every day of my life I thank the
goodness and the grace that dowered me with the spirit of an artist.
Think what a heritage it is to be eternally interested in a world full
of people who seem to be eternally bored!"

"I suppose you include me in that noble army of martyrs?"

"Decidedly. It is one of your worst faults."

"At least I never commit it in your presence."

She laughed, and lifted her shoulders.

"At least you know how to flatter a woman! But, for goodness' sake,
don't let's talk trivialities in the face of these stupendous
mountains."

"And why not? In my opinion, the trivialities of a human being are
worth more than the grandeur of a mountain, any day. But, seriously,
Miss Maurice--if you can be serious with me for five minutes--does all
this, and the Art in which you live and breathe, so satisfy you that
you feel no need for the far better things a man might have to offer
you?"

She frowned, and looked with sudden intentness at a distant, abject in
the valley.

"Yes--seriously--it does. What is more, it seems to me that most men
set too high a value on what they have to offer a woman, and that a
good many of us are better off without it."

Garth set his teeth, and did not answer at once. That his first
genuine attempt at a proposal of marriage should be thus cavalierly
nipped in the bud was disconcerting, to say the least of it.

"But not you--of all women," he protested, incredulously. "Are you
quite sure you unde