de a man's heart beat
hard; it brought him in close to her and thrust the world back. She
could not have helped the smile or its message.

"I have eaten," he said a trifle harshly, she thought.

"You are so good to me." She stirred her coffee and he saw only the
lashes and their black shadows on her cheeks. Then she said brightly:
"This is our third little picnic together, isn't it?"

"Then you haven't forgotten? The others?" The words said themselves for
him. The human comedy had begun, or the comedy begun long ago was
resumed smoothly in its third act, King unconsciously answering to his
cue. After that it was neither Gloria nor himself who played the part of
stage-director; that time-honoured responsibility was back in the hands
of the oldest of all stage-managers. The wind that drives autumn leaves
scurrying, the sun that awakens spring buds were no more resistless or
inevitable forces than the one now voicing its dictates.

"It would be--unmaidenly to ask him to marry you," whispered that other
self within her. Oh, if she could only guess which was the _real self_,
which the pretender! "And there is no need. Look at his eyes!"

King saw lying on the table the package done up in an old cloth which
she had brought. Further, he knew that he had seen it before and where
he had seen it. He knew that at last he had old Loony Honeycutt's secret
where he could put out his hand to it, with none to gainsay him. He knew
that with it was a message from his old friend Ben; that Ben, himself,
lay at this moment in Coloma hurt. And yet his eyes clung to the eyes of
Gloria and all of these things were swept aside in his mind. He saw that
when her eyes came to a meeting with his the flush in her cheeks grew
hotter. He tried to remember how he had come away from her in San
Francisco; how he had given her up for all time. But that memory
blurred; in its place he stood with her on a boulder in a creek, holding
her in his arms; he stood with her on a mountain top, with the world
lost below them. He sought to get a grip on himself; here and now was no
time to talk to her of love. She was alone; it was his one job right now
to take Ben's place, to protect her and efface his own madness. But was
he mad? And was now no time, after all? She was alone, yes; but if some
day she would marry him, was not now the time? What would he not give
for the right to stop the nasty mouth of Gratton once and for all.

Fragmentary thoughts, by no mean