ave I been delaying you?" asked Gabriel, turning toward the woman,
with a smile that matched her own.

"I'm afraid so, just a little," she answered. "But no matter; I'm glad.
When you get to writing, you know, nothing else matters. One line of
your verse is worth all the suppers in the world."

"Nonsense!" he retorted. "I'm a mere scribbler!"

"We won't argue that point," she answered. "But at any rate, you're
done, now. So come along, boy--or the comrades will begin 'dividing up'
without us; for this mountain air won't brook delay."

Gabriel took a long breath, stretched his powerful arms out toward the
mountains, and raised his face to the last light of day.

"Nature!" he whispered. "Ever beautiful and ever young! Ah, could man
but learn thy lessons and live close to thy great heart!"

Then, turning, he followed Catherine into the bungalow.

Beautiful and restful though the outside was, the interior was more
restful and more charming still.

In the vast fireplace, to left, a fire of pine roots was crackling. The
room was filled with their pitchy, wholesome perfume, with the dancing
light of their blaze and with the warmth made grateful by that mountain
height.

Simple and comfortable all the furnishings were, hand-wrought for use
and pleasure. Big chairs invited. Broad couches offered rest. No
hunting-trophies, no heads of slaughtered wild things disfigured the
walls, as in most bungalows; but the flickering firelight showed
pictures that inspired thought and carried lessons home--pictures of
toil and of repose, pictures of life, and love, and simple joy--pictures
of tragedy, of reality and deep significance. Here one saw Millet's
"Sower," and "Gleaners" and "The Man with the Hoe." There, Fritel's "The
Conquerors," and Stuck's "War." A large copy of Bernard's "Labor,"--the
sensation of the 1922 Paris Salon--hung above the mantelpiece, on which
stood Rodin's "Miner" in bronze. Portraits of Marx, Engels, LaSalle and
Debs, with others loved and honored in the Movement, showed between
original sketches by Walter Crane, Balfour Kerr, Art Young and Ryan
Walker. And in the well-filled bookshelves at the right, Socialist books
in abundance all told the same tale to the observer--that this was a
Socialist nest high up there among the mountains, and that every thought
and word and deed was inspired by one great ideal and one alone--the
Revolution!

At a plain but well-covered table near the western windows, where fad