"I can't help it," Van Shaw began again hurriedly, "You do not know how fascinating you are. It has just swept me off my feet." This time Helen understood what Van Shaw was saying and her face was flooded with a swift wave of colour. And she said coldly: "You have no right to talk to me like that. I will not listen." She turned her head and saw her mother just coming out of Talavenka's house, standing at the foot of the ladder as if preparing to go up with Mrs. Masters to the house roof. "Mother!" she called, in a dim way thinking of nothing except her desire somehow to escape a very embarrassing scene with Van Shaw. But there was so much noise made by the clattering groups of tourists and the sudden arrival of new comers that Mrs. Douglas did not hear. Besides at that moment Helen saw Bauer speaking to her and the next moment he and her mother had walked slowly off together up the tortuous village street and were lost to sight in the crowd. Van Shaw sat down on the kiva, and smiled a little. But his face was pale, and evidently for one of the rare occasions in his life he was truly and desperately in earnest. "You can't blame me, can you?" "It's--it's simply impossible. It's out of the question. I have not known you two days." "It doesn't take lighting two days to hit," said Van Shaw doggedly. "I won't listen. I forbid your talking to me," said Helen haughtily. "All right. But you can't forbid my thinking of you." "But I can and I will refuse to be in your company!" said Helen. She was angry now at something undefined in Van Shaw's manner. "If you do not leave me at once, I will try to leave you." She actually made a movement to rise and put her foot on the ground at the edge of the kiva. Van Shaw instantly got up and said quickly, "Of course I'll go. But I can't change my feelings and never shall. Promise me one thing. Don't believe all the stories you may hear about me." He had turned and walked up the street and Helen sank back with a strange feeling of relief mingled with shame and again that other feeling--what was it, pride? The sense of power over men? The feeling that her beauty was a gift or something else? She was frightened at it all put together and felt irritated to be left alone by the rest of the party as she looked around at the medley of old and new jumbled together in that Hopi village. And then the next reaction left her nervous and somewhat hysterical as she tried to imagine such a thing in a book. She actually laughed and the next moment Miss Gray and Walter appeared, at the edge of the kiva. Miss Gray came running up to her. "It's a shame to leave you here alone. How did that happen?" "Oh, I don't know. I haven't been alone long. How strange everything is."