sh that gradually over-spread her features, and brought what he called
the wild glint into her eyes. When he understood, he reddened in his own
turn, making matters worse.

"I beg your pardon," he stammered. "I never thought--"

"You needn't beg my pardon," she interrupted, speaking with a catch in her
breath. "I wanted you to know.... You've asked me so many questions that
it seemed as if I was ashamed of my father and mother when I didn't
answer.... I'm not ashamed of them.... I'd rather you knew.... Every one
does--who knows me."

Half unconsciously he glanced up at the framed sketches on the
chimney-piece. Her eyes followed him, and she spoke instantly:

"You're quite right. I meant that--for them."

They were standing in the studio, into which she had allowed him to come
from the stifling darkness of the inner room, on the ground that the rain
protected them against intrusion from outside. During their conversation
she had been placing the easel and arranging the work which formed her
pretext for being there, while Micmac, stretched on the floor, with his
head between his paws, kept a half-sleepy eye on both of them.

"Your father was a Canadian, then?" he ventured to ask, as she seated
herself with a palette in her hand.

"He was a Virginian. My mother was the wife of a French-Canadian voyageur.
I believe she had a strain of Indian blood. The voyageurs and their
families generally have."

Having recovered her self-possession, she made her statements in the
matter-of-fact tone she used to hide embarrassment flicking a little color
into the sketch before her as she spoke. Ford seated himself at a
distance, gazing at her with a kind of fascination. Here, then, was the
clew to that something untamed which persisted through all the effects of
training and education, as a wild flavor will last in a carefully
cultivated fruit. His curiosity about her was so intense that,
notwithstanding the difficulty with which she stated her facts, it
overcame his prompting to spare her.

"And yet," he said, after a long pause, in which he seemed to be
assimilating the information she had given him--"and yet I don't see how
that explains _you_."

"I suppose it doesn't--not any more than your situation explains you."

"My situation explains me perfectly, because I'm the victim of a wrong."

"Well, so am I--in another way. I'm made to suffer because I'm the
daughter of my parents."

"That's a rotten shame," he exclaimed, i