the boy. He had quickness of anticipation. An instant later the girl was
in his arms.

As Denzil gazed, it seemed she was in his arms too long, and a sudden
anxiety took hold of him. That anxiety was deepened when he saw the boy
kiss the girl on the cheek. This act seemed to discompose the girl, but
not enough to make drama out of an innocent, yet sensuous thing. The boy
had meant nothing more than he had shown, and Denzil traced the act to
a native sense of luxury in his nature. Knowing the boy's father
and mother as he did, it seemed strange that Carnac should have such
demonstration in his character. Of all the women he knew, Carnac's
mother was the most exact and careful, though now and again he thought
of her as being shrouded, or apart; while the boy's father, the great
lumber-king, cantankerous, passionate, perspicuous, seemed to have but
one passion, and that was his business.

It was strange to Denzil that the lumber-king, short, thin, careless
in his clothes but singularly clean in his person, should have a son so
little like himself, and also so little like his mother. He, Denzil, was
a Catholic, and he could not understand a man like John Grier who,
being a member of the Episcopal Church, so seldom went to service and so
defied rules of conduct suitable to his place in the world.

As for the girl, to him she was the seventh wonder of the earth.
Wantonly alive, dexterously alert to all that came her way, sportive,
indifferent, joyous, she had all the boy's sprightliness, but none of
his weaknesses. She was a born tease; she loved bright and beautiful
things; she was a keen judge of human nature, and she had buoyant
spirits, which, however, were counterbalanced by moments of extreme
timidity, or, rather, reserve and shyness. On a day like this, when
everything in life was singing, she must sing too. Not a mile away was
a hut by the river where her father had brought his family for the
summer's fishing; not a half-mile away was a tent which Carnac Grier's
father had set up as he passed northward on his tour of inspection. This
particular river, and this particular part of the river, were trying to
the river-man and his clans. It needed a dam, and the great lumber-king
was planning to make one not three hundred yards from where they were.

The boy and the girl resting idly upon a great warm rock had their
own business to consider. The boy kept looking at his boots with the
brass-tipped toes. He hated them. T