“You may remember what you said of him that night a year ago. Your intuition hit the mark. Harry Bromley has a heart of gold. He is a much better man than I am.” “A better man? In what way?” “Well, for one thing, he has a much better sense of values--the life values, you know. And for another, he isn’t burdened with a New England conscience. But I am forgetting. You don’t know anything about New England and its conscience.” “You shouldn’t throw my ignorance up at me,” she bantered. “Where is Mr. Bromley now?” “He is here in Denver; we have rooms together in the Alamo Building. Just at this present moment he is dining out with some new society friends he has been acquiring--at a Mrs. Demming’s, I think he told me.” “Oh,” she said; “the Demmings are rich people. I know, because I trimmed a hat for the daughter last week. But then, I suppose you and Mr. Bromley are both rich, too, now.” Philip smiled. “Not offensively so, yet; though we both have money in the bank; rather more of it than we know what to do with. But most of the riches are still in the rough, as you might say. We have leased our mine, and it won’t begin to pan out the real thing until later in the summer.” “You don’t know how glad I am!” she exclaimed, and her eyes were shining. “Glad for Harry, or for me?” “For both of you, of course. I think it is perfectly splendid--to go out into the wilderness that way and make it give you something that makes you richer and doesn’t make anybody any poorer. I suppose you will go back to Yankeeland now and live happily ever after?” “If I ran true to form, I imagine that is precisely what I should do,” Philip admitted soberly. “But I’m afraid I am not running true to form any more. This country out here has done something to me. I don’t know what it is, but I know that I don’t care to go back east to live. Are you homesick for Mississippi?” Her eyelids drooped, and he found himself wondering why he hadn’t remembered how pretty and curved and long her eyelashes were. “Sometimes I am,” she confessed, with a deeper note in her voice. “You see, it’s this way: when you leave a place that has been home for you as far back as you can remember.... But that is all over, now; there is nothing for us to go back to.” Her use of the plural reminded him that he had not yet asked about the other members of the family. He hastened to atone for the neglect. “Mummie isn’t at all well; she has never been very strong, you know. And Mysie and Mary Louise are in school. We are keeping house, after a fashion.” This was the brief reply his inquiry elicited; and then the dinner began to come on.