Then came one of those rare summer nights--rare on the prairies--when the air does not cool off with the approach of evening, and all the heat of day seems hemmed in by black clouds crowding overhead. I had gone to bed, but not to sleep. The far away flashing of heat lightning continuously lit my room with a vague twilight; my blankets had become unbearable, and I threw them off. The silence was intense; the very night seemed to brood over me; the perspiration stood out upon me. It took me back to the hot nights of the East, so little known with us, and from that starting point my mind went wandering down through old ways, down to the dam and the mill-wheel and the little boy and girl who were the starting point of all my recollections. Jean it had been then; Jean it was, with whom all my thoughts were linked; Jean was still the innermost hope of my heart. I had waited, patiently as I could, and the spring and summer months had seen arise between us an affection deeper, vaster, wider than anything I had known in those days when we had talked of love together. Our world had grown and we had grown with it. Ours was continually the spirit of the new adventure; continually a faring forth into the unknown. But I had not talked of love. It had been my conception of artistry to speak no more of love, daring all my hope on the prospect that the fires which I guessed had been rekindled in Jean's heart would in time burst all her womanly restraint. Then she would come to me. Jean was big enough for that. I had tried to follow her in spirit through the torment of those days after Spoof's revelation. I had guessed how hard it had been for her, and I kept silence. I conceived that that was artistry. But there must be an end sometime--sometime soon. I was not all artist, like Jean. Artistry was my means to an end. There must be an end. . . . Which would be the beginning. . . . Came a tapping on my window. I sat up quickly. "Frank?" "Yes?" "Asleep?" "Not within miles of it. Whew! Ever see a night like this?" I had thrust my head through the open window and could see her form dimly outlined against the night. "Used to be the usual thing, down East," she answered. "But we get out of the way of them, here. Get up and let's go for a swim." A flash of lightning revealed her in her bathing suit. I was soon out of bed and into mine. "Beat you to the other end of the pond," she said, as we threaded our way down the well-worn path. "You always beat me," I confessed. "But I'm game; I'll try again." We took the water together; its comforting tide wrapped us about as we swung through it with long, easy strokes. Jean suited her pace to mine; her body was a rhythmic machine, lithe, supple, almost serpentine in its movements. Her hair was down. When a glow of distant lightning fell about us her face was ivory white, cameo-like, against the black water.