CHAPER VIII.
She had so far forgotten herself in yielding to the spell of the place, and in the revelation of her naked soul and inner nature, that it was with something of the instinct of outraged modesty that she seemed to shrink before this apparition of the outer world and outer worldliness. In an instant the nearer past returned; she remembered where she was, how she had come there, from whom she had come, and to whom she was returning. She could see that she had not only aimlessly wandered from the world but from the road; and for that instant she hated this man who had reminded her of it, even while she knew she must ask his assistance. It relieved her slightly to observe that he seemed as disturbed and impatient as herself, and as he took a pencil from between his lips and returned it to his pocket he scarcely looked at her.
But with her return to the world of convenances came its repression, and with a gentlewoman's ease and modulated voice she leaned over her mustang's neck and said: “I have strayed from my party and am afraid I have lost my way. We were going to the hotel at San Mateo. Would you be kind enough to direct me there, or show me how I can regain the road by which I came?”
Her voice and manner were quite enough to arrest him where he stood with a pleased surprise in his fresh and ingenuous face. She looked at him more closely. He was, in spite of his long silken mustache, so absurdly young; he might, in spite of that youth, be so absurdly man-like! What was he doing there? Was he a farmer's son, an artist, a surveyor, or a city clerk out for a holiday? Was there perhaps a youthful female of his species somewhere for whom he was waiting and upon whose tryst she was now breaking? Was he—terrible thought!—the outlying picket of some family picnic? His dress, neat, simple, free from ostentatious ornament, betrayed nothing. She waited for his voice.
“Oh, you have left San Mateo miles away to the right,” he said with quick youthful sympathy, “at least five miles! Where did you leave your party?”
His voice was winning, and even refined, she thought. She answered it quite spontaneously: “At a fork of two roads. I see now I took the wrong turning.”
“Yes, you took the road to Crystal Spring. It's just down there in the valley, not more than a mile. You'd have been there now if you hadn't turned off at the woods.”
“I couldn't help it, it was so beautiful.”
“Isn't it?”
“Perfect.”