Dipping down through a wide, sandy hollow, tangled with fuzzy undergrowth, they climbed up again, making for a shoulder of the hill where the road curved sharply round the summit. They were alone in the world, now; no one was in sight, at least, and the glory of this free space of earth and air brought them as near to one another as if they had regained childhood. Clytie’s hat was off, and her hair wantoned over her forehead and neck. She gave him her joyous laughter unrestrained, and he listened as to a song, and attempted by every wile he knew to provoke it again and again. If she had been high-priestess before, now she was pixie, and he was, at first, almost as afraid of her in this new guise. He explored a new world with her, as Adam did with Eve. As Adam did with Eve, he marveled at her. It came to him, as they walked, that what had kept them apart, mentally, was an odd lack of humor. He saw how his whole life had been a pose towards himself as well as towards the world, repressing what now, the costume and custom gone, would come forth bubbling without care. He had kept a straight face so long! What mirth he had felt, in presence of his dupes, had been strained fine, escaping in the corner of a smile, while he fashioned his glib phrases. It had been a preacher’s sobriety, the sedateness of priest-craft, aging him prematurely. She held him her hands now down the years, back to decent, cleanly fun. To his surprise he found that he could give full vent to it. He could laugh aloud, and need not study effects and poses; he need not impress her. His wit was clumsy; it even approached silliness, in its first runaway impulse, but he at least lost his self-consciousness. He followed her merriment, and they discovered nonsense together. So, jollying, they tramped up to the road and came suddenly upon the sea, flaming, peacock blue, at the foot of the cliff which fell almost vertically at their feet. Across the dancing waves, from a coast like Norway’s, Point Bonita arose, guarding the Golden Gate. At the end of a semicircular cove to their left a ragged cliff jutted into the channel; behind its promontory the hills rolled back. She gave a cry of joy and happiness and sat down on the verge of the bluff to feast upon the view. He dropped beside her and took her hand. An automobile whirred past them and she did not flinch. There he underwent a revulsion of feeling. [Illustration: He dropped beside her and took her hand] "How can you love me?" he said bitterly. "What good am I? I have no capacity, no prospects, no purpose, even! I am a mere negative, and if I loved you I should free you from the incubus." "Do you recall reading the palm of a girl whose lover in the Philippines refused to write to her?" she asked. "It happened about the time I first knew you, I think."