"Then what, if you please, is the object I see swung aloft there in the dome?"
"My canvas hammock which I lower at night to climb into and go to bed, and pull up in the daytime to clear the decks."
"And the big earthen pot in the fireplace—it has gruesome suggestions of the 'Forty Thieves!'"
"Only a sort of perpetual hot-water tank. The fire never quite goes out on this domestic hearth, and proves a very acceptable companion at this high altitude. There is always the kettle on the crane, as you see it there, but limitless hot water is the fine art of housekeeping—but, perhaps you don't know the joy there is to be found in the fine art of housekeeping?"
"No, I do not," her eyes took on a whimsical expression, "but I'd like to learn—anything in the way of a new joy! In the way of small joys I am already quite a connoisseur, indeed I might call myself a collector in that line—of bibelot editions, you understand, for thus far I seem to have been unable to acquire any of the larger specimens! Would you be willing to take me on as a pupil in housekeeping?"
"It would add to my employment a crowning joy—not a bibelot!"
"Pinchbeck fine speeches again," she shrugged. "Do you stop here all the long summer quite alone?"
"All the 'short summer,'" he corrected, "save for the society of the cat, who dropped down last year from nowhere. He must have approved of the accommodations, for he has chosen me, you see, a second time for a summer resort."
"Yes—I think he was trying to protest about you being his exclusive find, when I invited myself to follow him down the mountain—leading and eluding are so much alike, one is often mistaken, is it not so?"
She was sitting forward now, chin in hands, elbows on her knees, gazing into the flames where a red banner waved above the back log. When she turned to him again the westering sun had broken through the clouds and was sending a flare of rosy light in at the window. Studying her face more fully, he saw that she was years—fully ten years—older than he had supposed. The boyish grace that sat so lightly was after all the audacious ease of a woman of the world, sure of herself.