That night when he went home, thinking over the kissing and the laughing and the gentle caresses, the thing that impressed him most was how natural it all had been. She had received it all, and he had given it, as though it were just like the scented heather, and the wind and the moon. He met her another night by careful chance, and again there was all of the child in her, eagerness and pensiveness and artless kissing and bubbling laughter. He could feel her eyes laugh. He met her a third time on the great hill above the town, and this time it was by appointment. She had become a great pleasantness to him, a greater pleasantness than he could ever have imagined before, there was something so apart from the world. The thought of meeting that night made his great chest heave involuntarily. That night he sensed, when he met her, she was all woman, not child alone. He kissed her and they sat down in the springy heather bells. She was silent. "It's been a long day," she said at length, "a long, long day." She looked at him and smiled. He turned to catch her up to him. She held him at the length of her arm. "What is your name?" she asked. "Your first name?" "Aleck." "Do you mean true, Aleck?" Not only her mouth, but her eyes, her whole being was questioning. "Aleck, do you mean true?" "Ay! I mean true." And he had became her lover, her secret lover. For one whole year she was a delight and a mystery to him. There was not in him, though, the whirling passion that makes for love epics. It was just good for him to know her. Had he been twenty he would have married her, nor been content until he had her bound by candle, book, and bell. But he was in his thirties now, and steady and solid and wise. She asked nothing of him. She accompanied him here and there, to Bangor, to Antrim Glens, dressed in modest decency. Their relation she accepted with dignity. She was not possessive, as a commoner woman might be. She was not fulsome in her affection for him. It was very restrained. "I like you well, Aleck," was all she uttered. "I like you fine, my big red man." At the works she never noticed him, nor he her. Once, indeed, he had wanted her to leave and take a little house somewhere, but her eyes had flashed terribly at the first words. "I 'm sorry, Jeanie," he faltered. "I 'm queer and sorry." "You hurt me," she confessed. "You did so." She relented at his distress. "Ah, sure, don't take on about it. A wee word--it comes out so easy. I should not have looked so fierce. But I know you did n't mean to belittle me, Aleck." He could never quite understand her. No woman in his life had ever acted so. There had been venal women, and foolish women, and women whom other women would instinctively recognize as evil. But Jean was a mixture of the opposites of these things, and she was also Jean.