here? It's ten years--ten years since I saw you, and you were only
fifteen, but a fifteen that was as good as twenty."

He scanned her face closely. "What's that scar on your forehead, Jo?
You hadn't that--then."

"I ran up against something," she said evasively, her eyes glittering,
"and it left that scar. Does it look so bad?"

"No, you'd never notice it, if you weren't looking close as I am. You
see, I knew your face so well ten years ago."

He shook his head with a forced kind of smile. It became him, however,
for he smiled rarely; and the smile was like a lantern turned on his
face; it gave light and warmth to its quiet strength-or hardness.

"You were always quizzing," she said with an attempt at a laugh--"always
trying to find out things. That's why you made them reckon with you out
here. You always could see behind things; always would have your own
way; always were meant to be a success."

She was beginning to get control of herself again, was trying hard to
keep things on the surface. "You were meant to succeed--you had to,"
she added.

"I've been a failure--a dead failure," he answered slowly. "So they say.
So they said. You heard them, Jo."

He jerked his head towards the open window.