Up to now, she had given her attention to scanning the faces of the multitude they had passed in the faint hope that by some chance her brother might be among them, but once the train started she surrendered herself fully to the new hope which lay ahead of her in the bungalow. This gave her an opportunity to study more closely this man who so suddenly had become her chief reliance in this intimate detail of her life. His kindly good nature furnished her a sharp contrast to the sober seriousness of the older man with whom so much of her youth had been lived. He had thrown open the doors and windows of the gloomy house in which she had so long been pent up. And yet as he rambled on in an evident attempt to lighten her burden, she caught a note that piqued her curiosity. It was as though below the surface he was fretted by some problem which lent a touch of sadness to his hearty courageous outlook. She felt it, when once on the journey he broke out, "Don't ever look below the surface of anything I say. Don't ever try to look beyond the next step I take. I'm here to-day; gone to-morrow." "Like the grass of the field?" she asked with a smile at his earnestness, which was so at odds with his light eager comments upon the bits of color which shot by them. "Worse--because the grass is helpless." "And we? We boast a little more, but are n't we at the mercy of chance?" "Not if we are worthy of our souls." She frowned. "There is Ben, surely he is not altogether to blame," she objected. "Less to blame than some others, perhaps." "Then there is the chance that helps us willy nilly," she urged. "You, to me, are such a chance. Surely it was not within my power to bring about this good fortune any more than it is within the power of some others to ward off bad fortune." "The mere episode does n't count. The handling of it is always within our power." "And we can turn it to ill or good, as we wish?" "Precisely." "Providing we are wise enough," she returned. "Yes, always providing that. That is the test of us." "If we do poorly because of lack of wisdom?" she pressed him further. "The cost is the same," he answered bitterly. "That is a man's view. I don't like to feel so responsible." "It would n't be necessary for women to be responsible for anything if men lived up to their best." She laughed comfortably. He was one who would. She liked the uncompromising way in which his lips closed below his quick imaginative eyes. It seemed but a matter of minutes before the train drew up at a toy station which looked like the suburban office of a real estate development company. Here they learned that the summer schedule was not yet in force, which meant that they would be unable to find a train back until four o'clock. "I should have inquired at the other end. That oversight is either chance or stupidity," he exclaimed. She met his eyes frankly, apparently not at all disconcerted.