I lost no time in bidding her welcome. When I took her hand in greeting the contact was electrical—it may have been my imagination, I grant—but I'm sure I felt as if a charge of some kind had been projected into me.
"Whut's this book?" she asked, closing the volume but still holding it with a clinging touch. It was to me as if she wanted to make it a part of her, her hands and fingers were so enveloping in their grasp.
"That's heresy—rank heresy!" I laughed. "If Father John saw me reading that he would tell you to run from me as fast as you could."
She glanced up with a most attractive blending of alarm and amusement on her face.
"Then whut yo' read it fur?" she demanded.
"It was written by one of the smartest men the world has ever known, and I want to find out what he thinks. We don't have to believe all we read, you know. We can read for various reasons."
I saw she did not understand.
"Sit down," I continued. "Here, the bench is big enough for two. I'm so glad you have come to see me to-day. You almost missed me; I've been up on Baldy."
We sat side by side. There was barely room enough; as it was our hips came in contact. Then I told her of my little trip toward the clouds. I'm sure she was not at all interested. In fact, after the first brightening of her face at the moment of my appearance, a sort of shadow had come upon it, as though cast from a mind not at rest. I watched her as I talked, and I know she was paying no heed to my recital. She toyed with the book, pressing the pages together, bending them in her fingers, and allowing them to slip under her thumb with a rustle. Now I saw her hair at close range for the first time, and it was truly a crown of glory. Solomon's wisdom was not at fault. A woman's hair holds some mysterious power for a man fully as potent as any of her other charms. There is sorcery in it—and sometimes love-dreams—and sometimes oblivion—and sometimes madness! As I gazed at the Dryad's hair my voice unconsciously dropped to a lifeless monotone. Quickly I noted a fact which formed a fitting supplement to my former discoveries regarding the care of her person. By all legitimate courses of reasoning her hair should have been stringy, sleek, unkempt, and—dirty! But I beheld it the reverse in every particular. No boudoir bred Miss of any city could have produced better cared for tresses. Each silken strand lay separate from its fellows. The whole mass was shining clean, and fresh, and fluffy; the well-shaped ears were transparently spotless, and her neck, where the yet finer hair grew upward and where tiny rings of cobwebby gold fluttered, was immaculate. Fellowman, do you marvel that my tale of climbing the peak came to an end almost in drivel?
As I stopped, rather sheepishly, she lost her hold on the book, and it slipped from her knees to the ground. Each bent to recover it. I was the quicker, but in the forward and downward movement which she made the Dryad's hair tumbled over her shoulders onto my neck, head and face, in a subtly scented, smooth, tickly mesh. It lasted but a moment; I think the shortest moment of my life. We came up laughing, both our faces red. But as for that, one's face is always red when one bends to pick up something.