forehead, and she had a moment's pleased and timorous reflection that 
he looked like Satan coming into the Garden.
He advanced from tussock to tussock. He came to the brink of the marsh. 
The lilies wavered what seemed but a hand's-breadth from him. But he 
stooped, he reached--Oh, could anything so foolish happen as that he 
could not get them! Or, more foolish still, plunge in to the knees! He 
straightened from his fruitless effort, drew back, but before she could 
think what he was about he had leaned forward again, flashed out his 
cane, and with three quick, cutting slashes the lilies were mown. It was 
deftly, delicately, astonishingly done, but it gave her a singular 
shock, as if she had seen a hawk strike its prey. He drew them cleverly 
toward him in the crook of his cane, took them up daintily in his 
fingers, and returned to her across the shallow valley. She waited him 
with mixed emotions.
"Oh, how could you!" she murmured, as he put them into her hand.
He looked at her in amused astonishment. "Why, aren't they right?"
They were as clean clipped off and as perfect as if the daintiest hand 
had plucked them.
"Oh, yes," she admitted, "they're lovely, but I don't like the way you 
got them."
"I took the means I had," he objected.
"I don't think I like it."
His whole face was sparkling with interest and amusement. "Is that so? 
Why not?"
"You're too--too"--she cast about for the word--"too terribly 
resourceful!"
"I see," he said. If she had feared he would laugh, it showed how little 
she had gauged the limits of his laughter. He only looked at her rather 
more intently than he had before.
"But, my good child, resourcefulness is a very natural instinct. I am 
afraid you read more into it than is there. You wanted the flowers, I 
had a stick, and in my youth I was taught to strike clean and straight. 
I am really a very simple fellow."
Looking him in the eyes, which were of a clear, candid gray, she was 
ready to believe it. It seemed as if he had let her look for a moment 
through his manner, his ironies, his armor of indifference, to the frank 
foundations of his nature.
"But, you see, the trouble is you don't in the least look it," she 
argued.
"So you think because I have a long face and wild hair that I am a 

 Prev. P 34/210 next