that interesting stage of dalliance where he wondered if he dared
kiss her good night the next time he called. He was preoccupiedly
reviewing the she-said-and-then-I-said, and trying to make up his
mind whether he should kiss her and take a chance on her
displeasure, or whether he had better wait. To him Marie appeared
hazily as another camper who helped fill the car--and his
pocket--and was not at all hard to look at. It was not until the
third trip that Bud thought her beautiful, and was secretly glad
that he had not kissed that San Jose girl.

You know how these romances develop. Every summer is saturated
with them the world over. But Bud happened to be a simple-souled
fellow, and there was something about Marie--He didn't know
what it was. Men never do know, until it is all over. He only
knew that the drive through the shady stretches of woodland grew
suddenly to seem like little journeys into paradise. Sentiment
lurked behind every great, mossy tree bole. New beauties unfolded
in the winding drive up over the mountain crests. Bud was
terribly in love with the world in those days.

There were the evenings he spent in the Basin, sitting beside
Marie in the huge campfire circle, made wonderful by the shadowy
giants, the redwoods; talking foolishness in undertones while the
crowd sang snatches of songs which no one knew from beginning to
end, and that went very lumpy in the verses and very much out of
harmony in the choruses. Sometimes they would stroll down toward
that sweeter music the creek made, and stand beside one of the
enormous trees and watch the glow of the fire, and the
silhouettes of the people gathered around it.