hing to be close about. I haven't
thought about anything but having a good time with you. I've just
drifted."

Fred blew a trail of smoke out into the breeze and looked knowing. "Yes,
you drift like a rifle ball, my dear. It's your--your direction that I
like best of all. Most fellows wouldn't, you know. I'm unusual."

They both laughed, but Thea frowned questioningly. "Why wouldn't most
fellows? Other fellows have liked me."

"Yes, serious fellows. You told me yourself they were all old, or
solemn. But jolly fellows want to be the whole target. They would say
you were all brain and muscle; that you have no feeling."

She glanced at him sidewise. "Oh, they would, would they?"

"Of course they would," Fred continued blandly. "Jolly fellows have no
imagination. They want to be the animating force. When they are not
around, they want a girl to be--extinct," he waved his hand. "Old
fellows like Mr. Nathanmeyer understand your kind; but among the young
ones, you are rather lucky to have found me. Even I wasn't always so
wise. I've had my time of thinking it would not bore me to be the Apollo
of a homey flat, and I've paid out a trifle to learn better. All those
things get very tedious unless they are hooked up with an idea of some
sort. It's because we DON'T come out here only to look at each other and
drink coffee that it's so pleasant to--look at each other." Fred drew
on his pipe for a while, studying Thea's abstraction. She was staring up
at the far wall of the canyon with a troubled expression that drew her
eyes narrow and her mouth hard. Her hands lay in her lap, one over the
other, the fingers interlacing. "Suppose," Fred came out at
length,--"suppose I were to offer you what most of the young men I know
would offer a girl they'd been sitting up nights about: a comfortable
flat in Chicago, a summer camp up in the woods, musical evenings, and a
family to bring up. Would it look attractive to you?"

Thea sat up straight and stared at him in alarm, glared into his eyes.
"Perfectly hideous!" she exclaimed.

Fred dropped back against the old stonework and laughed deep in his
chest. "Well, don't be frightened. I won't offer them. You're not a
nest-building bird. You know I always liked your song, 'Me for the jolt
of the breakers!' I understand."

She rose impatiently and walked to the edge of the cliff. "It's not that
so much. It's waking up every morning with the feeling that your life is
your own, and your streng