"It reminds me of the evenings at Graham's ranch. There can surely be no sunsets in the world to equal those that flame along the snows of British Columbia, and you will remember how, together, we watched them burn and fade."
It was an unfortunate reference, for now and then Helen had recalled that period with misgivings. Cut off from all association with persons of congenial tastes, she had not only found the man's society interesting, but she had allowed herself to sink into an indefinite state of companionship with him. In the mountain solitude, such camaraderie had seemed perfectly natural, but it was impossible under different circumstances. It was only on the last occasion that he had ever hinted at a continuance of this intimacy, but she had not forgotten the rash speech. Had the recollections been all upon her own side she might have permitted a partial renewal of the companionship, but she became forbidding at once when Geoffrey ventured to remind her of it.
"Yes," she said reflectively. "The sunsets were often impressive, but we are all of us unstable, and what pleases us at one time may well prove tiresome at another. If that experience were repeated I should very possibly grow sadly discontented at Graham's ranch."
Geoffrey was not only shrewd enough to comprehend that, if Miss Savine unbent during a summer holiday in the wilderness, it did not follow that she would always do so, but he felt that he deserved the rebuke. He had, however, learned patience in Canada, and was content to bide his time, so he answered good-humoredly that such a result might well be possible. They were silent until they halted where the hillside fell sharply to the verge of a cliff. Far down below Thurston could see the white pebbles shine through translucent water, and with professional instincts aroused, he dubiously surveyed the slope to the head of the crag.
Julius Savine, or somebody under his orders, had constructed a zig-zag pathway which wound down between small maples and clusters of wine-berries shimmering like blood-drops among their glossy leaves. In places the pathway was underpinned with timber against the side of an almost sheer descent, and he noticed that one could have dropped a vertical line from the fish-hawk, which hung poised a few feet outside one angle, into the water. They descended cautiously to the first sharp bend, and here Geoffrey turned around in advance of his companion. "Do you mind telling me how long it is since you or anybody else has used this path, Miss Savine?" he inquired.
"I came up this way last autumn, and think hardly any other person has used it since. But why do you ask?" was the reply.
"I fancied so!" Geoffrey lapsed instinctively into his brusque, professional style of comment. "Poor system of underpinning, badly fixed yonder. I am afraid you must find some other way down to the beach this morning."
It was long since Helen had heard anybody apply the word "must" to herself. As Julius Savine's only daughter, most of her wishes had been immediately gratified, while the men she met vied with one another in paying her homage. In addition to this, her father, in whose mechanical abilities she had supreme faith, had constructed that pathway especially for her pleasure. So for several reasons her pride took fire, and she answered coldly: "The path is perfectly safe. My father himself watched the greater portion of its building."
"It was safe once, no doubt," answered Geoffrey, slightly puzzled as to how he had offended her, but still resolute. "The rains of last winter, however, have washed out much of the surface soil, leaving bare parts of the rock beneath, and the next angle yonder is positively dangerous. Can we not go around?"
"Only by the head of the valley, two miles away at least," Helen's tone remained the reverse of cordial. "I have climbed both in the Selkirks and the Coast Range, and to anyone with a clear head, even in the most slippery places, there cannot be any real danger!"