"I'm not a clubman. Life's too busy." "Sounds imposing. What do you do, besides dance and use those serious eyes?" "That's all my regular vocation. At off times I play tennis, wave my hair in the breeze, and inspect mines." "It's nice hair." She regarded it thoughtfully. "You can pull it." With amused tolerance she smoothed it, then yanked it suddenly. "Ouch! I treasure that." An egotistic restlessness urged him. He thought once or twice of Jane, as he monopolized this girl. By an emotional vagary he connected the other with the clipped and forbidden rigors of the mountain life, which he had divorced finally. "How about dinner at the club to-morrow night, and the dance afterwards? Or a ride?" "But I'm to go out to the James', at Meadow Valley. Are you going?" "Ethel James'?... I haven't been asked." "Would they include you? Could I suggest it? It's an informal affair. It'll break up early." "I think it will be all right. She's here to-night.... We could have dinner first." He found an infrequent sparkle in her conversation, a pretty froth of talk that pleased. But it was not for this that he sought her out. The urge to wander that the mountain had sown in his blood impelled him most of all. He felt his imagination inflamed by the stimulus of her presence, the vivid challenge of her eyes, the audacious invitation of her lips. He had met no woman hitherto who so invited love-making. She seemed a rounded vessel brimfull of soft airs and caressing modulations of speech, that promised more than the bare words warranted. On the return from the James' country home, they shot ahead of the other cars, purring in poised flight down the smooth macadam of the county road. He turned off into the upward slope above Hazelton that led to the mountain; he regarded himself as its privileged showman. In front of the drowsy trimness of farm houses they pulsed, until at last he stopped the engine where the road rounded over a steep outcrop dropping a jagged hundred feet to the steep tree-y declivity below. "There's a bench. It's a wonderful view," he said, his speech thickened--the old timidity at the moment when passion possessed him again struggling against his desire. She took the seat he indicated. The cool whip of the breeze sprayed him with the faint suggestion of _lilas_ that hung about her person. He tried to pull his senses from her overwhelming fascination. "Isn't it wonderful?" She nodded, lips apart, eyes starry. Discarding his shield of constraint, he turned swiftly on her, catching the filmy fabric covering her arms and bringing her face toward him. Her voice was level, conventional. "You mustn't." She tried to squirm away. "Yes!" He whispered his urgent triumph. His lips avid from long self-denial, he blent with the wild sweetness of hers. She remained quiescent a moment, then sought to free herself. He clung to her, as if his life depended on retaining the warm rapture of her kiss. She thought he would never end.