These expeditions renewed themselves now in modified form. The two were constantly to be met with in the most unexpected places—tramping about the parks in the rain, making tea over a gipsy fire by the roadside, climbing, their pockets bulging with books and apples, to the top of a certain hill whence miles of wild rolling country were to be seen, and the city behind them was as if it had never been. Joan had no longer to enjoy the Beauty of the World alone. The hill became their favorite haunt; and all through the open winter they climbed to its top almost daily, where in the shelter of the cliff they built themselves a little fire and sat, their backs to the world, reading and munching apples, and talking, talking endlessly.
Joan never felt that any subject bad been exhausted between them. It seemed to her that the thoughts of a lifetime had been accumulating in her mind, waiting for him to pass judgment upon them; and to him it was no less than a miracle to watch her brain expanding, enlarging, visibly blossoming under the nourishment he supplied.
Perhaps her brain was not the only thing Nikolai loved to watch about Joan. He usually managed to seat himself a little behind her, out of her range of vision, so that his own might rest where it chose, unobserved. But he asked no more; having learned of life to practise the Hüttengluck which he did not preach.
Sometimes Archie made a third on these expeditions; for he had developed a great enthusiasm for Joan's famous friend, and occasionally neglected business to sit at the feet of wisdom. Not often, however. Business had reached a point where it declined to be neglected (the depression of 1913 was at hand); and besides Archie, despite their affectionate welcome, felt rather de trop with the pair.
"I'm no high-brow, and there's no use pretending I am," he confessed once to Emily Carmichael. "But that don't keep me from appreciating high-brows when I see 'em. It's as good as a correspondence-course in literature to hear those two go on. I'm as much out of it, though, as if they were talkin' the French language—which they sometimes are, at that!"
"Archie," asked Emily, hesitating, "are you never the least little bit—jealous?" Her friendship for Joan was too unquestionable for the remark to sound feline.
He laughed. "Me jealous? What for? I've got her, haven't I? And he hasn't, poor chap! Glad to share what I can."
It happened that at the same time this conversation occurred—it was a chance meeting down town, and Archie, always the soul of hospitality, had invited Emily to join him in a cup of hot clam-broth at a soda-fountain—that the pair on the hilltop were not indulging in either literature or the French language. Joan, ensconced upon a bed of leaves with her back against the sheltering cliff and her face warm with fireglow, remarked dreamily:
"Stefan, how have I ever managed to live here so long without you?"
His smile did not reach his eyes; those beautiful, speaking, somber eyes which reflected in them so much of the history of his race. He said, "And how shall you manage when I am gone again?"