Jan slackened his steps. It was a joy to see Mélisse springing from rock to rock and darting across the thin openings close ahead of him, her hair loosening and sweeping out in the sun, her slender figure fleeing with the lightness of the pale sun-shadows that ran up and down the mountain.
He would not have overtaken her of his own choosing, but at the foot of the ridge Mélisse gave up. She returned toward him, panting and laughing, shimmering like a sea-naiad under the glistening veil of her disheveled hair. Her face glowed with excitement; her eyes, filled with the light of the sun, dazzled Jan in their laughing defiance. Before her he stopped, and made no effort to catch her. Never had he seen her so beautiful, still daring him with her laugh, quivering and panting, flinging back her hair. Half reaching out his arms, he cried:
"Mélisse, you are beautiful—you are almost a woman!"
The flush deepened in her cheeks, and there was no longer the sweet, taunting mischief in her eyes. She made no effort to run from him when he came to her.
"Do you think so, Brother Jan?"
"If you did your hair up like the pictures we have in the books, you would be a woman," he answered softly. "You are more beautiful than the pictures!"
He drew a step back, and her eyes flashed at him again with the sparkle of the old fun in them.
"You say that I am pretty, and that I am almost a woman," she pouted.
"And yet—" She shrugged her shoulders at him in mock disdain. "Jan
Thoreau, this is the third time in the last week that you have not
played the game right! I won't play with you any more!"
In a flash he was at her side, her face between his two hands and, bending down, he kissed her upon the mouth.
"There," she said, as he released her. "Isn't that the way we have played it ever since I can remember? Whenever you catch me, you may have that!"