"Thank you--a thousand times." The crisp waves of the speaker's hair seemed to snap as on a cold night while she bowed her thanks. King played with his glasses; and she turned quickly back to the window in order that he should not see that sudden tears quenched the fire in her eyes. Her father's preoccupied face rose before her. Was it true that she had ever neglected him? A habit of sighing unconsciously had recently grown upon him. She had noticed that, and also that in late months new lines of harassment had come in his face. Never mind, she was going to run away with him, devote herself to him, far from this man who dared to comment, and to pick flaws in her behavior. He should never see her change. "I did want to do some riding with you, Linda. The idea comes to me like a picture or a poem when I think of those forests:-- '--here and there in solemn lines The dark pilasters of the pines Bore up the high woods' somber dome; Between their shafts, like tapestry flung, A soft blue vapor fell and hung.' Nice, isn't it?" "On what bond issue did you find that?" inquired Linda, tapping the window pane with restless fingers, and watching impatiently for her laggard cavalier. "I told Dr. Young I wanted to play with you and your father, but he said Mr. Barry and I didn't know how to play." "He was quite right." King regarded his companion's averted, charming head with a pale smile. "You know," he remarked after a little, "we can love people while seeing their imperfections." "Not I! I love only perfection." King gave a noiseless whistle, and raised his eyebrows. "I'm so glad I'm perfect," he said at last. Linda looked around at him slowly. How pale he was! Ripples of the flood of tenderness that had bathed the thought of her father flowed grudgingly toward her companion, as he stood there in the long twilight, regarding her with lack-lustre eyes. "There are pines outside of Colorado," she remarked. "That's what Mrs. Porter says." "Mrs. Porter?" Linda echoed him with interest; "but she has left town. I went to the studio yesterday, and she's gone; gone to Maine without letting me know." "You've been pretty hard to locate, remember. She told me she was going." Linda sighed. "If she could have gone West with Father and me, it would have been perfect." "I'm said to resemble Maud very strongly," suggested King. Linda regarded him with quick appraisement. "I never thought of it." She turned back to the window. "I can quote poetry, too, when I think of her. The other day I found a verse that fits her:-- 'He that of such a height hath built his mind, And reared the dwelling of his thoughts so strong, As neither fear nor hope can shake the frame Of his resolvéd powers; nor all the wind Of vanity or malice pierce to wrong His settled peace, or to disturb the same: What a fair seat hath he, from whence he may The boundless wastes and wilds of man survey.' A man named Daniel wrote that. Isn't it perfect?"