up here,--much better than the Plaza. I am at the Plaza."

"Automobile and all I suppose!" he said, sarcastically--"How many
servants?--how many boxes with how many dresses?"

She laughed again.

"That's no concern of yours!" she replied--"I am my own mistress."

"More's the pity!" he retorted.

They faced each other. The moon, now soaring high in clear space,
shed a luminous rain of silver over all the visible breadth of wild
country, and their two figures looked mere dark silhouettes half
drowned in the pearly glamour.

"It's worth travelling all the long miles to see!" she declared,
stretching her arms out with an enthusiastic gesture--"Oh, beautiful
big moon of California! I'm glad I came!"

He was silent.

"You are not glad!" she continued--"You are a bear-man in hiding,
and the moon says nothing to you!"

"It says nothing because it IS nothing"--he answered, impatiently--
"It is a dead planet without heart,--a mere shell of extinct
volcanoes where fire once burned, and its light is but the
reflection of the sun on its barren surface. It is like all women,--
but mostly like YOU!"