"Man--man," she said, and he felt her breast rise and fall, rise and fall, against his cheek. "Man, you didn't understand! It--it wasn't the clothes, Denny, but--but I'm all the gladder, I think, because you're so much of a man that you couldn't, not even if I tried a hundred years to explain." He drew the chair at the side of the table around in front of her and dropped into it. With a care akin to reverence he lifted one slipper and held it outstretched at arm's length upon his broad palm. "I--I hadn't exactly forgotten, tonight," he told her. "I'd watched for the light, and I meant to bring them--when I came." His steady eyes dropped to her slim, swinging feet. "They're the smallest they had in any shop at the county-seat," he went on, and the slow smile came creeping back across his face. "I crossed over through the timber late last night, after we had broken camp, and I--I had to guess the size. Shall we--try them on?" She reached out and snatched the small thing of satin and leather away from him with mock jealous impetuosity, a little reckless gurgle of utter delight breaking from her lips. "Over these," she demanded, lifting one foot and pointing at the thickly patched old stocking above the dingy, string-tied shoe. "You--you are trying to shame me, Denny--you want to make me confess they are too small!" Then, almost in the same breath, all the facetious accusation left her face. Even the warm glow of wonder which had lighted her wet eyes gave way to a new seriousness. "No one has ever told me," she stated slowly, "but I know it is so, just the same. Somehow, because it was to be the first party I had ever attended--or--or had a chance to attend, I thought it must be all right, just once, for you to buy me these. There was no one else to buy them, Denny, and maybe I wanted to go so very much I made myself believe that it was all right. But there isn't any party now--for us. And--and men don't buy clothes for women, Denny--not until they're married!" Her face was tensely earnest while she waited for the big man before her to answer. And Young Denny turned his head, staring silently out of the opposite window down toward the village, dark now, in the valley below. He cleared his throat uncertainly. "Do they?" She was leaning forward until her hair brushed his own. "Do they, Denny?" A rising inflection left the words hanging in midair. "I don't know just what the difference is," he began finally, his voice very deliberate. "I've often tried to figure it out, and never been quite able to get it straight"--he nodded his head again toward the sleeping village--"but we--we've never been like the rest, anyhow. And--and anyway," he reached out one hand and laid it upon her knees, "we're to be married, too--when--when----"