He had been so sure of himself; no woman was to touch his life until he had moulded it into its appointed shape—and then he would find a clear-eyed comrade who would be proud and humble in his glory—some girl, wise and tender and simple, who would always be waiting, quiet-eyed and quiet-hearted when he turned his tired steps to home—someone in whose kind arms he would find peace and rest and quiet. For he would be Man, the conqueror, and he would have deep need of these. So he had decreed, during the hard years that brought him to this place where, if he stretched only a little higher, he could touch the shining dreams—and behold, a door had opened and closed, and a yellow-haired girl had come in—and his ordered world was chaos and madness. He knew, with a sense of profoundly rebellious despair, that he was out of hand; his nerves had him, and they were riding him unmercifully, revenging themselves richly for all the days and nights that he had crushed them down and scorned them and ignored them. They had him now, this arrogant young dreamer, out to save a world—they had him now, for all his dreams!
“Mr. O’Hara, aren’t you taking me in to dinner?”
He started as violently as though she had touched his bare heart with those soft fingers of hers.
“You were a thousand miles away,” said the fairy voice, and the hand rested lightly on his arm. “I hate to bring you back, but they’re all going in, you see. Was it a pleasant country that you were playing in?”
“Pleasant enough,” he told her hardly. “But it’s poor sport looking down on a lost inheritance from the edge of a precipice. Did I seem to be enjoying it?”
“You looked as most of us feel on the edge of a precipice, I suppose—a little terrified, and a good deal thrilled. Was the lost heritage a pretty place?”
“As pretty as most lost places,” said O’Hara.
Lilah Lindsay leaned toward him, pushing the flowers between them a little aside.
“But why not turn your back on it?” she asked, her eyes laughing into his, friendly and adventurous. “You might climb higher up the mountain, and find some spot so strange and beautiful that it will make the little garden in the valley seem a dull spot well lost.”
“I have already turned my back,” he said.