with new notes of pathos and appeal in her exquisite voice, he
realized that she was an extremely charming woman.

More than that, she stood for home, for the dearly familiar and
beloved things for which he had been so surprisingly homesick. His
mountain cabin and the old house in San Francisco on Pacific
Avenue; she belonged to his memories of them both; she was the
only woman in the world that he knew well.

Before he said good-bye to her, he had asked her to marry him. He
well remembered her look of bright and interested surprise.

"D'you mean to tell me you have forgotten your lady love of the
hoop-skirts and ringlets?" she had demanded.

"She never wore ringlets and crinolines!" he had answered.

"Well, bustles and pleats, then?"

"No," Peter had told her, frankly. "I shall always love her, in a
way. But she is married; she never thinks of me. And I like you so
much, Alix; I like our music and cooking and tramps and reading--
together. Isn't that a pretty good basis for marriage?"

"No!" Alix had answered, decidedly. "Perhaps if I were madly in
love with you I should say yes, and trust to little fingers to
lead you gently, and so on--"

He remembered ending the conversation in one of his quick moods of
irritation against her. If she couldn't take anybody or anything