"You can't blame them," smiled Helen, "after three years of estrangement, and in love with each other all the while."
She was seated under a tree on the edge of the woods, half way up the western slope behind Runner's Rest. Grayson lay among the ferns at her feet. The day had turned hot, but up there in the transparent green shadows of the woods a slight breeze was stirring.
"Estranged all that time, and yet in love," repeated Helen, sentimentally, spreading out a fern frond on her knees and smoothing it. "Do you wonder that they lose no time together?"
Grayson, sprawling on his stomach, his handsome face framed in both hands, emitted a scornful laugh.
"You're very tender-hearted, theoretically," he said.
The girl looked up, smiled:
"Theoretically?" she inquired. "What do you mean, Phil?"
"What I say. Theoretically you are tender-hearted, sympathetic, susceptible. But practically——" His short laugh was ironical.
"Practically—what?" demanded the girl, flushing.
"Practically, you're just practical, Helen. You're nice to everybody, impartially; you go about your sculpture with the cheerful certainty of genius; nothing ever disconcerts you; you are always the cool, freshly gowned, charmingly poised embodiment of everything lovely and desirable—wonderful to look at, engaging and winsome to talk to—and—and all marble inside!"