"I promised to wait for you; I make no more promises!"
"That's fair enough! I watch you then!"
"Do you want to make me hate you?"
"Rather, I want you to come to love me."
"Could any girl come to love a man who treats her as you have done me?"
"Could any girl come to love a man," he demanded earnestly, "who thought so little of her as to let her escape him when once destiny had brought her and him together?"
CHAPTER XXI
The most perfect of the summer months in this secluded mountain nook, not inaptly named "Eden" by Standing, was a period of time measuring itself in soft, fragrant loveliness. The days were balmy, perfect, halcyon; gentle hours of blue cloudlessness and golden sunshine and little breezes which scarcely ruffled the clear water in the bigger pools; night as clear as crystal, with flaring stars like distant torches above the yellow pine tops; nature in her gentlest mood here among the ruggedness of the wilderness, expressing herself in the most delightful of odors wafted through the woods, in the tenderest tiniest blossoms of wild flowers; a time of infinite hush and infinite solitude and peace.