"Yes, I have tried it. I spent a half of the summer at our cottage on the lake."
"But it is not tan," he persisted, thrilled for a moment by the discoveries he was making. "It is the wind; it is the open; it is the smoke of camp-fires; it is the elixir of balsam and cedar and pine. That is what I see in your face—unless it is the fire."
"It is the fire, partly," she said. "And the rest is the wind and the open of the seas we have come across, and the sting of icebergs. Ugh: my face feels like nettles!"
She rubbed her cheeks with her two hands, and then held up one hand to Philip.
"Look," she said. "It's as rough as sand-paper. Isn't that a change? I didn't even wear gloves on the ship. I'm an enthusiast. I'm going down there with you, and I'm going to fight. Now have you got anything to say against me, Mr. Philip?"
There was a lightness in her words, and yet not in her voice. In her manner was an uneasiness, mingled with an almost childish eagerness for him to answer, which Philip could not understand. He fancied that once or twice he had caught the faintest sign of a break in her voice.
"You really mean to hazard this adventure?" he cried, softly, in his astonishment. "You, whom wild horses couldn't drag into the wilderness, as you once told me!"
"Yes," she affirmed, drawing her stool back out of the increasing heat of the fire. Her face was almost entirely in shadow now, and she did not look at Philip. "I am beginning to—to love adventure," she went on, in an even voice. "It was an adventure coming up. And when we landed down there something curious happened. Did you see a girl who thought that she knew me—"
She stopped, and a sudden flash of the fire lit up her eyes, fixed on him intently from between her shielding hands.
"I saw her run out and speak to you," said Philip, his heart beating at double-quick. He leaned over so that he was looking squarely into Miss Brokaw's face.