"Shall we seat ourselves here in the sun?" she asked. I nodded. Very gravely we settled down side by side on the thick green grass. "Now," she said, "I shall tell you why I wrote you to come out here. Shall I?" "By all means, Miss Blythe." Sitting cross-legged, she gathered her ankles into her hands, settling herself as snugly on the grass as a bird settles on its nest. "The phenomena of nature," she said, "have always interested me intensely, not only from the artistic angle but from the scientific point of view. "It is different with father. He is a painter; he cares only for the artistic aspects of nature. Phenomena of a scientific nature bore him. Also, you may have noticed that he is of a--a slightly impatient disposition." I had noticed it. He had been anything but civil to me when I arrived the night before, after a five-hundred mile trip on a mule, from the nearest railroad--a journey performed entirely alone and by compass, there being no trail after the first fifty miles. To characterize Blythe as slightly impatient was letting him down easy. He was a selfish, bad-tempered old pig. "Yes," I said, answering her, "I did notice a negligible trace of impatience about your father." She flushed. "You see I did not inform my father that I had written to you. He doesn't like strangers; he doesn't like scientists. I did not dare tell him that I had asked you to come out here. It was entirely my own idea. I felt that I _must_ write you because I am positive that what is happening in this wilderness is of vital scientific importance." "How did you get a letter out of this distant and desolate place?" I asked. "Every two months the storekeeper at Windflower Station sends in a man and a string of mules with staples for us. The man takes our further orders and our letters back to civilization." I nodded. "He took my letter to you--among one or two others I sent----" A charming colour came into her cheeks. She was really extremely pretty. I liked that girl. When a girl blushes when she speaks to a man he immediately accepts her heightened colour as a personal tribute. This is not vanity: it is merely a proper sense of personal worthiness. She said thoughtfully: "The mail bag which that man brought to us last week contained a letter which, had I received it earlier, would have made my invitation to you unnecessary. I'm sorry I disturbed you." "_I_ am not," said I, looking into her beautiful eyes. I twisted my mustache into two attractive points, shot my cuffs, and glanced at her again, receptively. She had a far-away expression in her eyes. I straightened my necktie. A man, without being vain, ought to be conscious of his own worth. "And now," she continued, "I am going to tell you the various reasons why I asked so celebrated a scientist as yourself to come here." I thanked her for her encomium.