matter, had never slept a night away from his birthtown of
Oakland, was right in his judgment. She was a flower of
Anglo-Saxon stock, a rarity in the exceptional smallness and
fineness of hand and foot and bone and grace of flesh and
carriage--some throw-back across the face of time to the foraying
Norman-French that had intermingled with the sturdy Saxon breed.

"And in the way you carry your clothes. They belong to you. They
seem just as much part of you as the cool of your voice and skin.
They're always all right an' couldn't be better. An' you know, a
fellow kind of likes to be seen taggin' around with a woman like
you, that wears her clothes like a dream, an' hear the other
fellows say: 'Who's Bill's new skirt? She's a peach, ain't she?
Wouldn't I like to win her, though.' And all that sort of talk."

And Saxon, her cheek pressed to his, knew that she was paid in
full for all her midnight sewings and the torturing hours of
drowsy stitching when her head nodded with the weariness of the
day's toil, while she recreated for herself filched ideas from
the dainty garments that had steamed under her passing iron.

"Say, Saxon, I got a new name for you. You're my Tonic Kid.
That's what you are, the Tonic Kid."

"And you'll never get tired of me?" she queried.

"Tired? Why we was made for each other."

"Isn't it wonderful, our meeting, Billy? We might never have met.
It was just by accident that we did."