And now to explain it--and she must explain it to maintain her self-respect--she was driven to the use of the word love; the word she prided herself on being able to regard with almost cynical scorn. It was not like this that she had expected love to come, if ever it did come into her life. If she was not yet twenty-five, she was no longer seventeen. She was supposed to be sufficiently well disciplined to analyze even this passion intelligently. If not, all her reading and thought were to little purpose. The first appeal of a lover to her should be through intellect and character, not through the emotions. It was some consolation to be able to admit that she could offer no criticism of Allston’s character as far as it had been revealed to her. As for his intellect, if it was not as acutely active as her ideal called for, it was by no means negative. She might have been satisfied with it--if only it mattered. But it did not. She had not this afternoon, and she did not now, care a picayune about his intellect. It was the beat of his pulse against her hand which had swayed her. It was the feel of being in his possession that had taken away her breath. It was the magic of his eyes seeking her eyes with an insistence almost brutal which had swept her off her feet. It was all those things which at this moment brought into her eyes something of the mystery which the moon brought to the familiar picture at which in awe she now gazed from her window. Her lips parted and she pronounced his name--using quite unconsciously, because it expressed a tenderness her mood demanded, a nickname she associated with a brother who had died very young. “Ned,” she repeated to herself. The sound of the whispered name brought the man into such vivid being that it was as though he stood beside her. She shrank away from the window. She stared about the room in fear lest her boldness had actually materialized him. Hurriedly she threw off her negligee and running to the bed hid herself beneath the sheets. CHAPTER XII A rain lasting three days delayed Bud Childers. But with the cards he now held he could afford to wait. Moreover, he found himself interested in a new occupation. He could use this time to advantage in preparing the shack for his prospective bride. It is doubtful if any woman in the world save Roxie could have roused in him such an ambition. This log house, substantially as it stood to-day, had been adequate for him, for his father, for his father’s father, and all the women who incidentally had lived here. He was ready to maintain that it was good enough for any one--except Roxie. It was essentially good enough for her. But living with the Howes had made her fussy. And she was a little different, anyway. She liked purty things and clean things.