He smiled. "I'll go the moment you want to get rid of me; but, even if you don't say anything, I like sitting here. This place rests me." "I shouldn't have imagined you to be of a very restful nature." "Oh," he declared, "there's a kind of quietness that braces you." He was less reserved than the average Englishman, but he felt the charm of his surroundings more keenly than the latter would probably have done. Everything in the room was artistic, but its effect was deeper than mere prettiness. It was cool, though the autumn sunshine streamed in, and the girl had somehow impressed her personality upon it. Soft colorings, furniture, even the rather incongruous mixture of statuettes and ivory carvings, blended into a harmonious whole, and the girl made a most satisfactory central figure, as she sat opposite him in her unusually thoughtful mood. He felt the charm of her presence, though he could hardly have analyzed it. As he said, it was not even needful that she should talk to him. "There are lakes in British Columbia from which you can look straight up at the never-melting snows," he went on. "You feel that you could sit there for hours, without wanting to move or speak, though it must be owned that one very seldom gets the opportunity." "Why?" Millicent inquired. "As a rule, the people who visit such places are kept too busy chopping big trees, hauling canoes round rapids, or handling heavy rocks. Besides, you have your food to cook and your clothes to mend and wash." "Then, after the day's labor, a man must do his own domestic work?" "Of course," answered Lisle. "Now and then one comes back to camp too wet or played out to worry, and goes to sleep without getting supper. I'm speaking of when you're working for your own hand. In a big logging or construction camp you reach the fringe of cooperation. This man sticks to the saw, the other to the ax, somebody else who gets his share of the proceeds chops the cord-wood and does the cooking." "And if you can neither chop nor saw nor cook?" "Then," Lisle informed her dryly, "you have to pull out pretty quick." "It sounds severe; that's cooperation in its grimmest aspect, though it's quite logical--everybody must do his part. I'm afraid I shouldn't be justified if we adopted it here." "Cooperation implies a division of tasks," Lisle pointed out. "In a country like this, they're many and varied. So long as you draw the wild things as you do, you'll discharge your debt." "Do you know that that's the kind of work the community generally pays one very little for?" "Then it shows its wrong-headedness," Lisle answered as he glanced meaningly round the room. "But haven't you got part of your fee already? Of course, that's impertinent." "I believe we would shrink from saying it, but it's quite correct," Millicent replied. "Still, since you have mentioned the drawings, I'd like your opinion about this ouzel."