hed he would kiss her. But he never did.

In between times he bemoaned his miserable two weeks' vacation which
made impossible the sort of thing he said he craved--a long, hard, rough
trip into a mountain interior. The Rockies, preferably, in their
jaggedest portions.

"That's the kind of thing that makes a fellow over. Roughing it. You
forget about the city. In the saddle all day--nothing but sky and
mountains. God's big open spaces! That's the life!"

Myra trudged along, painfully. "But isn't it awfully uncomfortable? You
know. Cold? And tents? I don't think I'd like----"

"I wouldn't give a cent for a person who was so soft they couldn't stand
roughing it a little. That's the trouble with you Easterners. Soft! No
red blood. Too many street cars, and high buildings, and restaurants.
Chop down a few trees and fry your own bacon, and make your own camp,
and saddle your own horses--that's what I call living. I'm going back to
it some day, see if I don't."

Myra looked down at her own delicate wrists, with the blue veins so
exquisitely etched against the white flesh. A little look of terror and
hopelessness came into her eyes.

"I--I couldn't chop down a tree," she said. She was panting a little in
keeping up with him, for he was walking very fast. "I'd be afraid to
saddle a horse. You have to stand right next to them, don't you? Most
girls can't chop----"

Florian smiled a little superior smile. "Miss Jessie Heath can." Myra
looked up at him, quickly. "She's a wonder! She was in yesterday," he
went on. "Spent all of two hours up in my department, looking things
over. There's nothing she can't do. She won a blue ribbon at the Horse
Show in February. Saddle. She's climbed every peak that amounts to
anything in Europe. Did the Alps when she was a little girl. This summer
she's going to do the Rockies, because things are so mussed up in
Europe, she says. I'm selecting the outfit for the party. Gad, what a
trip!" He sighed, deeply.

Myra was silent. She was not ungenerous toward women, as are so many
pretty girls. But she was human, after all, and she did love this
Florian, and Jessie Heath was old man Heath's daughter. Whenever she
came into the store she created a little furore among the clerks. Myra
could not resist a tiny flash of claws.

"She's flat, like a man. And she wears 7-1/2-C. And her face looks as if
it had been rubbed with a scouring brick."

"She's a goddess!" said Florian, striding along. Myra lau