gets into the blood. Only
yesterday I was thinking how small and tame the lawns at home would
look after this." She swept a hand in a half-circle, and then gave a
little laugh. "I believe I could enjoy living up here."

Ainley laughed with her. "A year of this," he said, lightly, "and you
would begin to hunger for parties and theatres and dances and
books--and you would look to the Southland as to Eden."

"Do you really think so?" she asked seriously.

"I am sure of it," he answered with conviction.

"But I am not so sure," she answered slowly. "Deep down there must be
something aboriginal in me, for I find myself thrilling to all sorts of
wild things. Last night I was talking with Mrs. Rodwell. Her husband
used to be the trader up at Kootlach, and she was telling me of a white
man who lived up there as a chief. He was a man of education, a
graduate of Oxford and he preferred that life to the life of
civilization. It seems he died, and was buried as a chief, wrapped in
furs, a hunting spear by his side, all the tribe chanting a wild
funeral chant! Do you know, as she described it, the dark woods, the
barbaric burying, the wild chant, I was able to vision it all--and my
sympathies were with the man, who, in spite of Oxford, had chosen to
live his own life in his own way."

Ainley laughed. "You see it in the glamour of romance," he said. "The
reality I imagine was pretty beastly."

"Well!" replied the girl quickly. "What would life be without romance?"

"A dull thing," answered Ainley, promptly, with a sudden flash of the
eyes. "I am with you there, Miss Yardely, but romance does not lie in
mere barbarism, for most men it is incarnated in a woman."

"Possibly! I suppose the mating instinct is the one elemental thing
left in the modern world."

"It is the one dominant thing," answered Ainley, with such emphasis of
conviction that the girl looked at him in quick surprise.

"Why, Mr. Ainley, one would think that you--that you----" she
hesitated, stumbled in her speech, and did not finish the sentence. Her
companion had risen suddenly to his feet. The monocle had fallen from
its place, and he was looking down at her with eyes that had a strange
glitter.

"Yes," he cried, answering her unfinished utterance. "Yes! I do know.
That is what you would say, is it not? I have known since the day Sir
James sent me to the station at Ottawa to meet you. The knowledge was
born in me as I saw you stepping from the car. The on