lly a certain health and rightness, a
certain essential integrity, which she prized more highly than all
book learning and bank accounts. It was by virtue of this health, and
rightness, and integrity, that he had beaten Hall in argument the night
the poet was on the pessimistic rampage. Billy had beaten him, not with
the weapons of learning, but just by being himself and by speaking out
the truth that was in him. Best of all, he had not even known that he
had beaten, and had taken the applause as good-natured banter. But Saxon
knew, though she could scarcely tell why; and she would always remember
how the wife of Shelley had whispered to her afterward with shining
eyes: "Oh, Saxon, you must be so happy."

Were Saxon driven to speech to attempt to express what Billy meant to
her, she would have done it with the simple word "man." Always he was
that to her. Always in glowing splendor, that was his connotation--MAN.
Sometimes, by herself, she would all but weep with joy at recollection
of his way of informing some truculent male that he was standing on his
foot. "Get off your foot. You're standin' on it." It was Billy! It was
magnificently Billy. And it was this Billy who loved her. She knew it.
She knew it by the pulse that only a woman knows how to gauge. He loved
her less wildly, it was true; but more fondly, more maturely. It was
the love that lasted--if only they did not go back to the city where the
beautiful things of the spirit perished and the beast bared its fangs.

In the early spring, Mark Hall and his wife went to New York, the two
Japanese servants of the bungalow were dismissed, and Saxon and Billy
were installed as caretakers. Jim Hazard, too, departed on his yearly
visit to Paris; and though Billy missed him, he continued his long swims
out through the breakers. Hall's two saddle horses had been left in his
charge, and Saxon made herself a pretty cross-saddle riding costume
of tawny-brown corduroy that matched the glints in her hair. Billy no
longer worked at odd jobs. As extra driver at the stable he earned more
than they spent, and, in preference to cash, he taught Saxon to ride,
and was out and away with her over the country on all-day trips. A
favorite ride was around by the coast to Monterey, where he taught her
to swim in the big Del Monte tank. They would come home in the evening
across the hills. Also, she took to following him on his early morning
hunts, and life seemed one long vacation.

"I'll