the most
famous pleasure resorts of the entire region. Three or four times as
distant lay the nearest town of any importance. Over the plain and
through the clear atmosphere it looked like a bird's-eye-view map
rather than an actual town. Far away to the left, gorgeous in coloring
and grotesque in outline, could be seen the odd figures of many
strangely piled rocks.

The two pedestrians stopped now and then to rest and look away over
the matchless scene and take in its wonderful beauty. The woman was
tall and slender, with a superb carriage. Even on that steep ascent
she moved with the grace and freedom of one who has entire command of
her body. She was well gowned also for such an excursion. Her short,
green cloth skirt did not impede her movements, and high, stout shoes
gave her firm footing. She had removed her jacket, and in her bright
pink silk blouse and abbreviated petticoat, with the glow of the
morning on her usually pale face, she looked almost girlish; but her
face was not that of girlhood. It was without lines, and the heavy
masses of her golden-brown hair were quite unstreaked with silver; but
her white forehead was serene with the calmness that follows
overcoming, and her dark gray eyes saw the world shorn of its
illusions. In her there were, or had been, unrealized capacities for
life in all its height and depth and breadth. In studying her one
became vaguely aware that, having missed these things, she had found a
fourth dimension which supplied the loss.

Her companion was younger by several years, and so much taller that
she seemed almost small in comparison. In his eyes there danced and
shone the light of truth and courage and hope, and he walked with the
buoyancy of joy and youth. Israfil, Antinous, Apollo,--he might have
stood as the model for any of them, or for a fit representation of the
words of the wise man, "Rejoice, oh, young man, in thy youth, and let
thine heart cheer thee in the days of thy youth, and walk in the ways
of thine heart."

The relation between the two was problematic. Certainly there was no
question of love on either side. Equally certainly there existed
between them a rare and exquisite camaraderie, a perfect comprehension
that often made words superfluous. A look sufficed.

They toiled up the steep, narrow path until they reached a wide trail,
a carriage road that had been laid out and abandoned. It swept around
the mountain-side, miles above the little city on the plai