Obediently he rose and dived. When he emerged, dripping, and
made the climb he found that she was no longer on the ledge, but
after a frightened he heard her light laughter from another shelf
ten feet up. There he joined her and they both sat quietly for a
moment, their arms clasped round their knees, panting a little
from the climb.

"The family were wild," she said suddenly. "They tried to marry
me off. And then when I'd begun to feel that after all life was
scarcely worth living I found something"--her eyes went skyward
exultantly---"I found something!"

Carlyle waited and her words came with a rush.

"Courage--just that; courage as a rule of life, and something to
cling to always. I began to build up this enormous faith in
myself. I began to see that in all my idols in the past some
manifestation of courage had unconsciously been the thing that
attracted me. I began separating courage from the other things of
life. All sorts of courage--the beaten, bloody prize-fighter
coming up for more--I used to make men take me to prize-fights;
the declasse woman sailing through a nest of cats and looking at
them as if they were mud under her feet; the liking what you like
always; the utter disregard for other people's opinions--just to
live as I liked always and to die in my own way-- Did you bring
up the cigarettes?"

He handed one over and held a match for her gently.

"Still," Ardita continued, "the men kept gathering--old men and