"You think you're awake, but you're not. Tell you what a girl needs, a stage--just like an actor. Think they can put on a play with these mountains for a setting? Never in the world. Make the actors look too small. Make everything they say sound too thin. "Same way with a girl. She needs a setting. A room, a rug, a picture, a comfortable chair, and a dress that goes with it. Shuts out the rest of the world and gives her a chance to make a man focus on her--see her behind the footlights. See?" "Yes," she whispered. "Do you know what I've been doing while I watched you just now?" "Tell me." He was fighting for a great purpose now, and a quality of earnest emotion crept into his voice. "Around your throat I've been running an edging of yellow old lace. Under your hand that was lying there I put a deep blue velvet; I had your shoulders as white as snow, with a flash to 'em like snow when you turned in the light; I had you proud as a queen, Ruth, with a blur of violets at your breast. I took out the tired look in your face. Instead, I put in happiness." He stopped and drew a long breath. "You're pretty now, but you could be--beautiful. Lord, what a flame of a beauty you could be, girl!" Instead of flushing and smiling under the praise, he saw tears well into her eyes and her mouth grow tremulous. She winked the tears away. "What are you trying to do, Ben? Make everything still harder for me? Don't you see I'm helpless--helpless?" And instead of rising to a wail her voice sank away at the end in despair. "Oh, you're trapped well enough," he said. "I'm going to bust the trap! I'm going to give you your setting. I'm going to make you what you ought to be--beautiful!" She smiled as at any unreal fairy tale. "How?" "I can show you better than I can tell you! Come here!" He rose, and she was on her feet in a flash. He led the way to the door of the shack, and as the shadows fell inside, Shakra tossed up her head. The girl's bewildered joy was as great as if the horse were a present to her. "Oh, you beauty, you beauty," she cried. "Watch yourself," he warned. "She's as wild as a mountain lion." "But she knows a friend!" Shakra sniffed the outstretched hand, and then with a shake of her head accepted the stranger and looked over Ruth's shoulder at Connor as though for an explanation. Connor himself was smiling and excited; he drew her back and forgot to release her hand, so that they stood like two happy children together. He spoke very softly and rapidly, as though he feared to embarrass the mare. "Look at the head first--then the bone in the foreleg, then the length above her back--see how she stands! See how she stands! And those black hoofs, hard as iron, I tell you--put the four of 'em in my double hands, almost--ever see such a nick? But she's no six furlong flash! That chest, eh? Run your finger-tips down that shoulder!" She turned with tears of pleasure in her eyes. "Ben Connor, you've been in the valley of the grays!"