“I think so, too. And that is lucky for us. That makes this crazy situation more comfortable—less—well, perhaps less ponderous.” The girl assented with a vague smile, but her eyes remained lowered. “You see,” he went on, “when two people are as oddly situated as we are, they’re likely to be afraid of being in each other’s way. But they ought to get on without being unhappy as long as they are quite confident of each other’s friendly consideration. Don’t you think so, Tressa?” Her lowered eyes rested steadily on her ring-finger. “Yes,” she said. “And I am not—unhappy, or—afraid.” She lifted her blue gaze to his; and, somehow, he thought of her barbaric name, Keuke,—and its Yezidee significance, “heavenly—azure.” “Are we really going away together?” she asked timidly. “Certainly, if you wish.” “If you, also, wish it, Mr. Cleves.” He found himself saying with emphasis that he always wished to do what she desired. And he added, more gently: “You _are_ tired, Tressa—tired and lonely and unhappy.” “Tired, but not the—others.” “Not unhappy?” “No.” “Aren’t you lonely?” “Not with you.” The answer came so naturally, so calmly, that the slight sensation of pleasure it gave him arrived only as an agreeable afterglow. “We’ll go South,” he said.... “I’m so glad that you don’t feel lonely with me.” “Will it be warmer where we are going, Mr. Cleves?” “Yes—you poor child! You need warmth and sunshine, don’t you? Was it warm in Yian, where you lived so many years?” “It was always June in Yian,” she said under her breath. She seemed to have fallen into a revery; he watched the sensitive face. Almost imperceptibly it changed; became altered, younger, strangely lovely. Presently she looked up—and it seemed to him that it was not Tressa Norne at all he saw, but little Keuke—Heavenly Azure—of the Yezidee temple, as she dropped one slim knee over the other and crossed her hands above it. “It was very beautiful in Yian,” she said, “—Yian of the thousand bridges and scented gardens so full of lilies. Even after they took me to the temple, and I thought the world was ending, God’s skies still remained soft overhead, and His weather fair and golden.... And when, in the month of the Snake, the Eight Sheiks-el-Djebel came to the temple to spread their shrouds on the rose-marble steps, then, after they had departed, chanting the Prayers for the Dead, each to his Tower of Silence, we temple girls were free for a week.... And once I went with Tchagane—a girl—and with Yulun—another girl—and we took our keutch, which is our luggage, and we went to the yaïlak, or summer pavilion on the Lake of the Ghost. Oh, wonderful,—a silvery world of pale-gilt suns and of moons so frail that the cloud-fleece at high-noon has more substance!” Her voice died out; she sat gazing down at her spread fingers, on one of which gleamed her wedding-ring. After a little, she went on dreamily: