Her eyes crinkled up again. "I'll just do it," she said gaily, "I'll do it now. Presto," she shut her eyes. "Now I have his point of view. Now I'm seeing what he sees--that Miss Sally Madeira likes to hear him sing, and humours him and pets him because he is gay and glad to be alive, and because Uncle Bernique says that he needs somebody to mother him. I mother Piney. Can't you see that." She laughed again and arose and stood in front of him, gay, mocking, nonchalant. "Piney love! And if Piney could love, that you should fancy that he might dare love Salome Madeira!" He forgot about Piney. She blocked his farther vision like a shaft of light. He could not see an inch beyond her. Madeira's voice rang down the garden walk. Steering did not hear it. "Salome! Salome!" he murmured, "Is that it, Salome?" "Yes, that's it, Salome. Isn't it foolish? The Di down there is the Diaphanous, too. Some pioneer poet named it for its shimmer, but what good did it do? Missouri promptly called it the 'Di.' No more good is it to name a child Salome in the backwoods of Missouri. She's bound to grow up Sally. I've always been Sally, except at school. I'll always be Sally down here with my own people." "No, you won't always be Sally--no you won't always be down here with your own people either,"--he leaned back on the bench and watched her, his eyes half shut, his whole sense of being illumined by her, his tongue playing audaciously with his discretion. "Yes, I shall always be Sally, too." That bisque-warm skin of hers flushed wondrously and she seemed to talk out of a little confused audacity of her own. Madeira's voice rang down the walk again. "Yes, Father!--and down here with my own people, too. Yes, Father!" "Company's here, Sally." "All right, Father, coming." "And I have to go?" asked Steering piteously. "Oh no, come up to the house and meet our sixteen-to-one congressman, Quicksilver Sam." "No--I'll go," chose Steering. "Say, can't I get through from the garden here, and go down the river road?" "Yes, you can. Samson shall bring your horse around, if you like. There's a bridle-path down to the river; it's Piney's way." "Well, if you will be so good as to have the horse brought, I'll take Piney's path. I'm going to the hills to try to find Piney and Uncle Bernique. Think I'll sleep in the hills with them to-night. I feel so sad. When may I come back?" "Well, you see," the trouble crept into her voice again, misty, tremulous--"you see, I may go away." "Oh!" he cried, and then again, "Oh!" a bitter wailing note. "Yes, I may," she said hastily. "You see, your friend, Miss Gossamer, wants me to join her in Europe. She is very insistent about it." "And you may go?" "And I may go."