Beetrus saw him sauntering on her track. The blood was buzzing in her head, and she hid herself upon a pile of steep high rocks, obeying some wild impulse of which she felt ashamed. To follow him with her eyes and be herself invisible was an impersonal rapture in which she could indulge without giving it too great advantage. Yet, when he disappeared near the river, she felt a stinging check in her heart, and a sense of having inflicted loss and robbery upon herself. To Beetrus he was the walking essence of the world, representing not only its mighty business, but its advantages of culture and travel. She never had been from home except to Evansville and New Harmony; and he never stayed two nights in a place, and spoke with fatigue of his exciting life. What operas he had seen!--for in Beetrus’s chaotic imagination all theatrical performance was opera, and operas were the distinct possessions of the worldly. She resented with a mixture of awe and daring the greatness of his relatives. He was a nephew of the head of his commercial house, and his grandfather had been a congressman; while her background was the pioneer’s cabin, the pecan woods, and Wabash rocks and hills. Beetrus was the child of a shrewd though romance-soaked mother, who had dowered her with something more than a mispronounced fine name and biased imagination. It is strange to think how large a human mass, moving this instant in grooves of practical action, is protesting with secret scorn against all its conditions. Beetrus was full of a girl’s unrests and eccentric impulses. She thought she knew exactly what she wanted for her happiness. She pressed her cheek against the rock lichens, taking a half-inverted view of the autumn tangle, and glad in spite of herself for the pleasant breath of life. It was worth while to be a part of such woods and river vistas, and to smell all the ground’s odors. Some little living thing ran along a log not far from her; and she could hear a squirrel bark, a whish and a whisper of loosened leaves as they were sent adrift, and then the dropping of a nut. Strong as the sunlight was, she shivered upon the rocks, and then felt all her blood burn, beat, and tremble. The commercial traveler was walking back with a brisk step from the river, and scanning every opening among the trees, as if on an eager search. He saw Beetrus rising and tightening her pink shawl on her shoulders, and halted with a jerk. “Where have you been?” was his unceremonious exclamation. “Up here, reading my letters and viewing the country.” “You saw me go past, then, didn’t you?” “Was it you?” said she, fitting her foot deftly to the steep descent. “Let me lift you down. How pretty you look this morning!” “Oh! don’t talk about pretty, Mr. Poundstone,” said Beetrus, dyed in color, after he had stood her upon the moss, dazed as she always was by his prevailing presence.