But the smile in her face died. Looking across the rhododendrons at him, it came over her again, as it had when she met him on her arrival the previous day, that he was losing his boyish color; that he was harassed and worn. "Don’t you ever go fishing, Paul? Or cruising, or anywhere?" He shook his head, smiling a little. "Hardly, this year. It’s impossible to get away." Little Silas, tugging at his mother’s hand, drew her to the door. But Alice lingered. "Can’t Phil Kingsley manage these mills yet, for even one day?" He glanced in warning at Louise. "It takes us both," he answered quietly. "This milling business is pretty big; it reaches out; and he tends to the other end. But I’m all right. I like to work; I’m used to it. And I need it, lots of it, to keep me level-headed." "You are that, but shall I tell you what I think, Paul Forrest? I think it’s making you old, fast; or else, you are not well." "Oh, yes, I am. But, I was up late last night; I was bothered some about a trial balance; that’s all. I’m going to take this evening off. I want to try that accompaniment, if you will sing that new serenade for me." He stood watching them from the entrance, Mason following with the salmon, while they crossed up the dock, then he went back to his desk. She had reached over the railing, in passing, to lay on his ledger a branch of rhododendron. He picked it up, smiling a little, and looked at it. No one else was in the store at the moment, and he touched the petals gently; his hand moved over the stiff, spiky leaves. "So," he told himself, "So, she has left me a bit of the woods. And she is like this plant; straight and self-reliant and independent like the stem; and with this same nice color of the blossom in her cheek." He laid the cool pink cluster against his own face; he pressed it with his lips. Then, suddenly, his whole frame began to tremble; his shoulders heaved. "I love her; I love—her," and he crushed the flower between his palms and threw it down. "My God, how can I help loving her?"