"Very well, I believe. The men were down the other day, and told me it was a big thing."
"I'm delighted. How does it seem, to be rich?"
There was the slightest hint of constraint in the girl's voice as she stared out at the slowly gathering twilight, murmuring:
"I—I hardly know. Rich! That has always been my dream, and yet—"
"The wonderful feature about dreams," he took advantage of her pause to say, "is that they come true."
"Not all of them—not the real, wonderful dreams," she returned.
"Oh yes! My dream is coming true, and so is yours."
"I have given up hoping for that," she said, without turning.
"But you shouldn't give up. Remember that all the great things ever accomplished were only dreams at first, and the greater the accomplishments, the more impossible they seemed to begin with."
Something in the girl's attitude and in her silence made him feel that his words rang hollow and commonplace. While they had talked, an unaccustomed excitement had been mounting in his brain, and it held him now in a kind of delicious embarrassment. It was as if both had been suddenly enfolded in a new and mysterious understanding, without the need of speech. He did not tell himself that Cherry loved him; but he roused to a fresh perception of her beauty, and felt himself privileged in her nearness. At the same time he was seized with the old, half-resentful curiosity to learn her history. What wealth of romance lay shadowed in her eyes, what tragic story was concealed by her consistent silence, he could only guess; for she was a woman who spoke rarely of herself and lived wholly in the present. Her very reticence inspired confidence, and Boyd felt sure that here was a girl to whom one might confess the inmost secrets of a wretched soul and rest secure in the knowledge that his confession would be inviolate as if locked in the heart of mountains. He knew her for a steadfast friend, and he t'elt that she was beautiful, not only in face and form, but in all those little indescribable mannerisms which stamp the individual. And this girl was here alone with him, so close that by stretching out his arms he might enfold her. She allowed him to come and go at will; her intimacy with him was almost like that of an unspoiled boy—yet different, so different that he thrilled at the thought, and the blood pounded up into his throat.