and who, through this conquest, were destined to become the immortal
founders of the Empire of the West. He could have overlooked being
spoken to like a child by a girl who might be younger than himself for
all he or she knew to the contrary--though this would have been harder.
He might even have forgiven that pat on his cheek which was downy with
beard, had he been either younger or older. But as it was--well, the
matter may safely be left to the sympathy of the man who remembers the
most sensitive time of his own youth; that trying period when he feels
himself to be no longer a boy and nobody else considers him a man.

David did not know where he was going or what he meant to do. He was
blindly striding up the river bank away from Ruth, fairly aflame with
the determination to do something--anything--to prove his manhood. For
nothing ever makes a boy resolve quite so suddenly and firmly to become
a man instantly as to be treated by a girl as he had been by Ruth. Had
the most desperate danger then come in David's way, he would have hailed
and hazarded it with delight. But he could not think of anything to
overwhelm her with just at that moment, and so he could only stride on
in helpless, angry silence. Ruth flew after him as if her thin white
skirts had been strong, swift wings. She overtook him before he had gone
very far, and clung to him again more than ever like some beautiful
white spirit of the woods wreathed in mist, with her soft blown garments
and her softer blown hair. She merely wound herself around him at first,
breathless and panting. But as soon as she caught her breath the
coaxing, the laughing, and the crying came all together. David kept from
looking down as long as he could, but his pace slackened and his arm
again relaxed. Finally--taken off guard--he glanced at the face so near
his breast. The dusk could not dim its beauty and only made it more
lovely. No more resistance was possible for him--or for any man or
boy--who saw Ruth as she looked then. David's big rough hand was now