"I do----I'm really not fishing for compliments, but I do want to be found understanding----" "There's never been any one so understanding." Silent then. Carl glanced about the modern room. Ruth's eyes followed. She nodded as he said: "But it's really an old farm-house out in the hills where the snow is deep; and there's logs in the fireplace." "Yes, and rag carpets." "And, oh, Ruth, listen, a bob-sled with----Golly! I suppose it is a little premature to call you 'Ruth,' but after our being married all evening I don't see how I can call you 'Miss Winslow.'" "No, I'm afraid it would scarcely be proper, under the circumstances. Then I must be 'Mrs. Ericson.' Ooh! It makes me think of Norse galleys and northern seas. Of course--your galley was the aeroplane.... 'Mrs. Eric----'" Her voice ran down; she flushed and said, defensively: "What time is it? I think we must be starting. I telephoned I would be home by ten." Her tone was conventional as her words. But as they stood waiting for a trolley-car to the New York ferry, on a street corner transformed by an arc-light that swung in the wind and cast wavering films of radiance among the vague wintry trees of a wood-lot, Ruth tucked her arm under his, small beside his great ulster, and sighed like a child: "I am ver-ee cold!" He rubbed her hand protectingly, her mouselike hand in its fur-lined glove. His canny, self-defensive, Scotchlike Norse soul opened its gates. He knew a longing to give, a passion to protect her, a whelming desire to have shy secrets with this slim girl. All the poetry in the world sounded its silver harps within him because his eyes were opened and it was given to him to see her face. Gently he said: "Yes, it's cold, and there's big gray ghosts hiding there in the trees, with their leathery wings, that were made out of sea-fog by the witches, folded in front of them, and they're glumming at us over the bony, knobly joints on top their wings, with big, round platter eyes. And the wind is calling us--it's trying to snatch us out on the arctic snow-fields, to freeze us. But I'll fight them all off. I won't let them take you, Ruth." "I'm sure you won't, Carl." "And--oh--you won't let Phil Dunleavy keep you from running away, not for a while yet?" "M-maybe not."