"This is Harford Brooke, Shafton. Of course, you have heard of him!" she said with a coquettish smile, which it occurred to Brooke was not, under the circumstances, especially appropriate. "Harford, I don't think you ever met my husband." Brooke stood still and the other man nodded with an air of languid indifference. "Glad to see you, I'm sure," he said. "Met quite a number of Englishmen in this country." Then he turned towards the other woman as though he had done all that could be reasonably expected of him, and when the manager of the mine led the way down into the valley Brooke found himself walking with the woman who had flung him over a few paces behind the rest of the party. He did not know exactly how this came about, but he was certain that he, at least, had neither desired nor in any way contrived it. They went down into the hollow between colonnades of towering trunks, crossed a crystal stream and climbed a steep ascent towards the clashing stamp-heads, but the woman appeared in difficulties and gasped a little until Brooke held out his arm. He had already decided that her little high-heeled shoes were distinctly out of place in that country, and wondered at the same time what kind Barbara Heathcote wore, for she, at least, moved with lithe gracefulness through the bush. He was, however, sensible of nothing in particular when his companion looked up at him as she leaned upon his arm. "I was wondering how long it would be before you offered to help me. You used to be anxious to do it once," she said. Brooke smiled a little. "That was quite a long time ago. I scarcely supposed you needed help, and one does not care to risk a repulse." "Could you have expected one from me?" There was an archness in the glance she cast him which Brooke was not especially gratified to see, and it struck him that the eyes which he had once considered softest blue were in reality tinged with a hazy grey, but he smiled again as he parried the question. "One," he said, "never quite knows what to expect from a lady." His companion made no immediate answer, but by and by she once more glanced up at him. "I am really not used to climbing if Shafton is, and I am not going any further just now," she said. A newly-felled cedar lay conveniently near the trail, but its wide-girthed trunk stood high above the underbrush, and Brooke dragged up a big hewn-off branch to make a footstool before his companion sat down on it. The branch was heavy, and she watched his efforts approvingly. "Canada has made you another man. Now, I do not think Shafton could have done that in a day," she said. "Of course, he would never have tried, even to please me."