blue of her eyes a hundred times. He found it a delightful sensation to
talk to her and look into those eyes at the same time. He told her more
about himself than he had ever told another soul. It was she who spoke
first of the manuscript upon which he was working. He had spoken of certain
adventures that had led up to the writing of one of his books.

"And this last book you are writing, which you call 'Mothers,'" she said.
"Is it to be like 'Fair Play?'"

"It was to have been the last of the trilogy. But it won't be now,
Ladygray. I've changed my mind."

"But it is so nearly finished, you say?"

"I would have completed it this week. I was rushing it to an end at fever
heat when--you came."

He saw the troubled look in her eyes, and hastened to add:

"Let us not talk about that manuscript, Ladygray. Some day I will let you
read it, and then you will understand why your coming has not hurt it. At
first I was unreasonably disturbed because I thought that I must finish it
within a week from to-day. I start out on a new adventure then--a strange
adventure, into the North."

"That means--the wild country?" she asked. "Up there in the North--there
are no people?"

"An occasional Indian, perhaps a prospector now and then," he said. "Last
year I travelled a hundred and twenty-seven days without seeing a human