"I haven't any ragtime," the man explained humbly. "I could only bring up a few records, and so I took just the ones I liked best. They're simple things--I'm sorry I haven't any more." She looked at this man with growing wonder. Of course he would like the simple things. No man of her acquaintance had ever possessed truer standards: no sophistication or cultural growth such as she herself had know could have given him a truer gentility. What was this thing that men could learn in the woods and in the North that gave them such poise, such standards, and brought out such qualities of manhood? Yet she knew that the forests did not treat all men alike. Those of intrinsic virtue were made better, their strength was supplemented by the strength of the wilderness itself, but the weaklings perished quickly. This was not a land for soft men, for the weak and the cowardly and the vicious. The wild soon found them out, harried them by storms and broke their hearts and their spirits, and kept from them its gracious secrets. Perhaps in this latter thing lay the explanation. It seemed to her that Bill was always straining, listening for the faintest, whispered voices of the forest about him. He was always watching, always studying--his soul and his heart open--and Nature poured forth upon him her incalculable rewards. He put on a record, closed the doors of the instrument tight to muffle the sound, and set the needle. She recognized the melody at once. It was Drdla's "Souvenir"--and the first notes seemed to sweep her into infinity. It was a beautiful, haunting thing, sweet as love, warm as a maiden's heart, tender as motherhood; and all at once Virginia was aware of a heart-stirring and incredible contrast. The melody did not drown out the sound of the storm. It rose above it, infinitely sweet and entreating, and all the time the wild strains of the storm outside made a strange and dreadful background. Yet the two songs mingled with such harmony as only old masters, devotees to music, can sometimes hear in their inmost souls but never express in notes. She felt the tears start in her eyes. Her cheeks flamed. Her heart raced and thrilled. For all the exquisite beauty of the song, a vague dread and an incomprehensible fear seemed to come upon her. For all the stir and impulse of the melody, a strange but exquisite sadness engulfed her spirit. In that single instant the North drew aside its curtains of mystery and showed her its secret altar. For a breath at least she knew its soul,--its travail, its dreadful beauty, its infinite sadness, its merciless strength.