best romance becomes dangerous if by its
excitement it renders the ordinary course of life uninteresting,
and--and----' I've forgotten the rest of it. Could anything make this
life down here--anything written, I mean--seem uninteresting?"

He looked at her without answering. What was this she was saying? What
was this shanty-boat woman, this runaway wife, talking about? He was
dazed at being transported so suddenly from his observations to such
reflections.

"That's right," he replied, inanely. "I remember reading
that--somewhere!"

"You've read Ruskin?" she cried. "Really, have you?"

"Sesame and Lilies--there's where it was!"

"Oh, you know?" she exclaimed, looking at him. He caught the full flash
of her delight, as well as surprise, at finding someone who had read
what she quoted, and could place the phrase.

"The sun's bright," she continued. "Won't you come down on my boat in
the shade? I've lots of books, and I'm hungry--I'm starving to talk to
somebody about them!"

It was a pretty little boat, sweet and clean; the sitting room was
draped with curtains along the walls, and there was a bookcase against
the partition. She drew a rocking chair up for him, drew her own little
sewing chair up before the shelves, and began to take out books.

He had but to sit there and show his sympathy with her excitement over
those books. He could not help but remember where he had first heard her
name, seen the depressed woman who was her mother. And the bent old
hunter who was her father. It was useless for him to try to explain
her.

Just that morning, too, he had left Nelia Crele's husband in an
alcoholic stupor--a man almost incredibly stupid!

"I know you don't mind listening to me prattle!" she laughed, archly.
"You're used to it. You're amused, too, and you're thinking what a story
I will make, aren't you, now?"

"If--if a man could only write you!" he said, with such sincerity that
she laughed aloud with glee.

"Oh, I've read books!" she declared. "I know--I've been miserable, and
I've been unhappy, but I've turned to the books, and they've told me.
They kept me alive--they kept me above those horrid little things which
a woman--which I have. You've never been in jail, I suppose?"

"What--in jail? I've been there, but not a prisoner. To see prisoners."

"You couldn't know, then, the way prisoners feel. I know. I reckon most
women know. But now I'm out of jail. I'm free."

He could not answer; her eyes fla