And yet Wilmer Howe was not without her attractions. As far as physical beauty goes she possessed a piquant charm of her own. She had as pretty a face as any of those who had pretty faces and not much else. Her brown eyes were like placid pools reflecting autumn foliage--the deep pools one finds in shaded places. Her mouth and nose and chin were modeled as a careful and sensitive artist might model them. If they were not as quickly responsive as the features of some of her friends, they perhaps inspired more confidence when they did respond. It meant something to rouse Wilmer Howe either to laughter or tears. Few had accomplished either, though many had made her smile and a few claimed to have seen her eyes dimmed. A handsome good-for-nothing from Georgia--later killed at Château-Thierry--had done more than that, but he never spoke of it. He kept it, to the end, a grave secret. Allston was the first man ever presented to her without a well-filled-in background. He had done his best, since, to supply the deficiency by casual mention of his mother and father and sister, even a few aunts and cousins for good measure, and an incidental reference to the ancestor who settled on the James. She never questioned any of his statements--except her father she had never met a more straightforward man or one whose ordinary speech she was so ready to accept at its full face value--but these people to whom he referred remained nothing more than shadows. They lacked all the sidelights that mutual friends throw upon such a group. Not that she minded particularly. In a way it was rather refreshing. It left her free--utterly free--to discover the man for herself. Here he was, undeniably prepossessing, straight and tall, clear of eye, thin of face, bearing a faint resemblance physically and superficially to the lean mountain folk hereabouts. But he and they had chosen different roads a hundred years ago--perhaps a thousand years ago. A passing glance told her all she needed to know of a man like Bud Childers. A decade might never fully reveal a man like Allston. And yet, at times, she felt as though she had made wonderful progress in even this brief period of two weeks. She had come to like him. She had come to trust him. She had come to wait for him. And now to-night she had come to worry about him. That, on the whole, was a bit absurd. She recognized as much herself. It rather vexed her. Of course her anxiety could be justified on general humanitarian grounds. She was not so cold-blooded but that any man in danger roused her sympathies. And this man was her guest. Moreover, she was indirectly responsible for having placed him in his present hazardous position. Clearly, then, there was nothing unnatural in the fact of her being more or less disturbed when he was two hours late.