"Yes," Ruth added, "and Montessori's system of education--that's what I think is the most important.... See that sail-boat, Hawk! Like a lily. And the late-afternoon gold on those marshes. I think this salt breeze blows away all the bad Ruth.... Oh! Don't forget the attempts to cure cancer and consumption. So many big things starting right now, while we're sitting here." "Lord! what an age! Romance--why, there's more romance in a wireless spark--think of it, little lonely wallowing steamer, at night, out in the dark, slamming out a radio like forty thousand tigers spitting--and a man getting it here on Long Island. More romance than in all the galleons that ever sailed the purple tropics, which they mostly ain't purple, but dirty green. Anything 's possible now. World cools off--a'right, we'll move on to some other planet. It gets me going. Don't have to believe in fairies to give the imagination a job, to-day. Glad I've been an aviator; gives me some place in it all, anyway." "I'm glad, too, Hawk, terribly glad." The sun was crimsoning; the wind grew chilly. The beach was scattered with camp-fires. Their own fire settled into compact live coals which, in the dusk of the dune-hollow, spread over the million bits of quartz a glow through which pirouetted the antic sand-fleas. Carl's cigarette had the fragrance that comes only from being impregnated with the smoke of an outdoor fire. The waves were lyric, and a group at the next fire crooned "Old Black Joe." The two lovers curled in their nest. Hand moved toward hand. Ruth whispered: "It's sweet to be with all these people and their fires.... Will I really learn not to be supercilious?" "Honey! You--supercilious? Democracy---- Oh, the dickens! let's not talk about theories any more, but just about Us!" Her hand, tight-coiled as a snail-shell, was closed in his. "Your hand is asleep in my hand's arms," he whispered. The ball of his thumb pressed her thumb, and he whispered once more: "See. Now our hands are kissing each other--we--we must watch them better.... Your thumb is like a fairy." Again his thumb, hardened with file and wrench and steering-wheel, touched hers. It was startlingly like a kiss of real lips. Lightly she returned the finger-kiss, answering diffidently, "Our hands are mad--silly hands to think that Long Beach is a tropical jungle." "You aren't angry at them?" "N-no."