road."

"Yes, but," she persisted, "you think, having learned my mistake, I should
have stayed on the freight train as far as Ellensburg, where I could have
waited for the next passenger back to Seattle."

"If you had, you would have disappointed me. That would have completely
spoiled my estimate of you."

"Your estimate of me?" she questioned.

"Yes." He paused and his glance moved slowly, a little absently, up the
unfolding gorge. "It's a fancy of mine to compare a woman, on sight, with
some kind of flower. It may be a lily or a rose or perhaps it's a
flaunting tulip. Once, up in the heart of the Alaska forest, it was just a
sweet wood anemone." He paused again, looking off through the trees, and a
hint of tenderness touched his mouth. "For instance," he went on, and his
voice quickened, "there is your friend, Mrs. Feversham. I never have met
her, but I've seen her a good many times, and she always reminds me of one
of those rich, dark roses florists call Black Prince. And there's her
sister, who makes me think of a fine, creamy hyacinth; the sturdy sort,
able to stand on its own stem without a prop. And they are exotics, both
of them; their personality, wherever they are, has the effect of a strong
perfume."

He paused again, so long that this time his listener ventured to prompt
him. "And I?" she asked.

"You?" He turned, and the color flushed through his tan. "Why, you are
like nothing in the world but a certain Alaska violet I once stumbled on.
It was out of season, on a bleak mountainside, where, at the close of a
miserable day, I was forced to make camp. A little thing stimulates a man
sometimes, and the sight of that flower blooming there when violet time
was gone, lifting its head next to a snow-field, nodding so pluckily,
holding its own against the bitter wind, buoyed me through a desperate
hour."

She turned her face to look down through the treetops at the complaining
stream. Presently she said: "That is better than an estimate; it is a
tribute. I wish I might hope to live up to it, but sooner or later," and
the vibration played softly in her voice, "I am going to disappoint you."

Tisdale laughed, shaking his head. "My first impressions are the ones that
count," he said simply. "But do you want to turn back now?"

"N--o, unless you--do."

Tisdale laughed again mellowly. "Then it's all right. We are going to see
this trip through. But I wish I could show you that Alaska mountainside in
midsum