“No; not from the outside.” His hidden gaze shifted to sweep the far distances. His voice dropped and softened, and, when he spoke again, she felt vaguely and strangely that he was hardly thinking of her or her question, except as a part of the great wonder-world surrounding and enfolding their companioned remoteness. “This is my _credo_,” he said, and quoted, half under his breath:— “‘We have come in search of truth, Trying with uncertain key Door by door of mystery. We are reaching, through His laws, To the garment hem of Cause. As, with fingers of the blind, We are groping here to find What the hieroglyphics mean Of the Unseen in the seen; What the Thought which underlies Nature’s masking and disguise; What it is that hides beneath Blight and bloom and birth and death.’” Other men had poured poetry into Polly Brewster’s ears, and she had thought them vapid or priggish or affected, according as they had chosen this or that medium. This man was different. For all his outer grotesquery, the noble simplicity of the verse matched some veiled and hitherto but half-expressed quality within him, and dignified him. Miss Brewster suffered the strange but not wholly unpleasant sensation of feeling herself dwindle. “It’s very beautiful,” she said, with an effort. “Is it Matthew Arnold?” “Nearer home. You an American, and don’t know your Whittier? That passage from his ‘Agassiz’ comes pretty near to being what life means to me. Have I answered your requirements?” “Fully and finely.” She rose from the rock upon which she had been seated, and stretched out both hands to him. He took and held them without awkwardness or embarrassment. By that alone she could have known that he was suffering with a pain that submerged consciousness of self. “Whether I see you again or not, I’ll never forget you,” she said softly. “You _have_ been good to me, Mr. Perkins.” “I like the other name better,” he said. “Of course. Mr. Beetle Man.” She laughed a little tremulously. Abruptly she stamped a determined foot. “I’m _not_ going away without having seen my friend for once. Take off your glasses, Mr. Beetle Man.” “Too much radiance is bad for the microscopical eye.” “The sun is under a cloud.” “But you’re here, and you’d glow in the dark.” “No; I’m not to be put off with pretty speeches. Take them off. Please!” Releasing her hand, he lifted off the heavy and disfiguring apparatus, and stood before her, quietly submissive to her wish. She took a quick step backward, stumbled, and thrust out a hand against the face of the giant rock for support. “Oh!” she cried, and again, “Oh, I didn’t think you’d look like that!” “What is it? Is there anything very wrong with me?” he asked seriously, blinking a little in the soft light. “No, no. It isn’t that. I—I hardly know—I expected something different. Forgive me for being so—so stupid.”