feel that you're safe, too.
I've always felt--ever since I jumped into your arms that night--that
you--that you were on the right side of the safety-curtain. You are,
aren't you? Oh, please say you are! But I know you are." She held out
her hands to him with a quivering gesture of confidence. "If you'll
forgive me for--for fooling you," she said, "I'll forgive you--for being
fooled. That's a fair offer, isn't it? Don't let's think any more about
it!" Her rainbow smile transformed her face, but her eyes sought his
anxiously.

He took the hands, but he did not attempt to draw her nearer. "Puck!" he
said.

"What is it?" she whispered, trembling.

"Don't!" he said. "I won't hurt you. I wouldn't hurt a hair of your
head. But, child, wouldn't it be safer--easier for both of us--if--if we
lived together, instead of apart?"

He spoke almost under his breath. There was no hint of mastery about
him at that moment, only a gentleness that pleaded with her as with a
frightened child.

And Puck went nearer to him on the instant, as it were instinctively,
almost involuntarily. "P'r'aps some day, Billikins!" she said, with a
little, quivering laugh. "But not yet--not if I've got to go to the
Hills away from you."

"When I follow you to the Hills, then," he said.

She freed one hand and, reaching up, lightly stroked his cheek.
"P'r'aps, Billikins!" she said again. "But--you'll have to be awfully
patient with me, because--because--" She paused, agitatedly; then went
yet a little nearer to him. "You will be kind to me, won't you?" she
pleaded.

He put his arm about her. "Always, dear," he said.

She raised her face. She was still trembling, but her action was one of
resolute confidence. "Then let's be friends, Billikins!" she said.

It was a tacit invitation. He bent and gravely kissed her.

Her lips returned his kiss shyly, quiveringly. "You're the nicest man I
ever met, Billikins," she said. "Good-night!"

She slipped from his encircling arm and was gone.

The man stood motionless where she had left him, wondering at himself,
at her, at the whole rocking universe. She had kindled the Magic Fire
in him indeed! His whole being was aglow. And yet--and yet--she had had
her way with him. He had let her go.

Wherefore? Wherefore? The hot blood dinned in his ears. His hands
clenched. And from very deep within him the answer came. Because he
loved her.

CHAPTER V

THE WOMAN

Summer in the Plains! Pitiless, burni