He was bareheaded still, and she noticed now for the first time that his hair was very fair and very fine, brushed sleekly back from his forehead, shining; that he was taller than she had realized; that there was a look of power about him for all his slimness and his cool coloring. Then she stopped noticing altogether, because he had come swiftly to her and caught her in his arms. “Here, on Aleck’s bridge,” he said, happily. “We’ve come to each other across Aleck’s bridge; it was Aleck who brought us together.” Then he ceased talking about Aleck and kissed her. “Scotch granite and Spanish flame; that is what you are,” he told her, holding her away from him for an instant to consider her. “There was never any one like you; you have a stern Scotch chin and a soft Spanish mouth; you are--” then, aware of the way he was wasting time, he left off making phrases and kissed her Spanish mouth, and Estrada, riding in from the range, reined in his horse and stared, wide-eyed, and Aunt Fan, coming out on to the veranda, looked down at them and gasped, and wondered when the result of Jim’s investigations would come, and old Manuela, watching from a window, crossed herself and called fervently upon her favorite saint. But for the two on Aleck’s bridge there was, for that slender, golden, perishable moment, no one else in the glowing world. CHAPTER IV THE world continued to be otherwise uninhabited and to glow rosily for almost a fortnight. Ginger’s Aunt Fan received a very satisfactory letter from Jim Featherstone; the Wolcott Family was as solid as Plymouth Rock, and contemporaneous with it. Dean Wolcott was a young man of excellent lineage, character, and achievement--known already, at twenty-eight, for unusual and original work in his line. He had gone in mildly for athletics at Harvard, topped his classes, made two of the best clubs. He had been popular in a quiet and discriminating fashion. At the end of his letter Aunt Fan’s ex-husband allowed himself a bit of facetiousness. “I’ve sleuthed the lad down very thoroughly. But--Tremont Street and Dos Pozos! Well, it may work out, if he likes paprika on his Boston beans!”