When Helen appeared at the door, he was for an instant powerless to move, so thrilled was he with his love for her. She came across the room with a happy smile, her hand held out. He strode toward her, and as he caught her hand his blood swept through him in a warm wave. "I'm so glad to see you again!" she cried, and a little laugh told him how sincere her joy was. A sudden desire struggled to tell her, truly, how great was his gladness, and its kind, at seeing her again; and fighting the desire back made him dizzy. "And I to see you!" he said. "It's been--let's see--five months since I've seen you, and--" "Five months and four days," the desire within David corrected. "And four days," she accepted, with a laugh. "And there've been so many things during that time I've wanted to talk with you about. But how are you?" She moved near a window. She was full of spirits this day. The out-door life from which she had just come, the wind, the sun, the water, were blowing and shining and rippling within her. David, in analysing his love for her, had told himself he loved her because of her able mind, her nobility of soul, her feeling of responsibility toward life. Had he analysed further he would have found that her lighter qualities were equally responsible for his love--her sense of humour, the freshness of her spirits, her joy in the pleasures of life. She had never shown him this lighter side with more freedom than now--not even during the summer seven years before when for two weeks they had been comrades;--and David, yesterday forgotten, yielded to her mood. He frankly looked her over. She wore a tailor-made suit of a rich brown, that had captured some of the warm glow of sun-lit autumn, and a little brown hat to match on which bloomed a single red rose. Her face had the clear fresh brown of six months' sun, and the sun's sparkle, stored in her deep eyes, beamed joyously from them. She was a long vacation epitomised, idealised. "May I say," he remarked at length, with the daring of her own free spirit, "that you are looking very well?" For her part, she had been making a like survey of him. His tall figure, which had regained its old erectness, was enveloped in clothes that fit and set it off; and his clean-lined face, whose wanness had been driven away by the life in hers, looked distinguished against the background of the dark-green window hangings. "You may," she returned, "if you will permit me to say the same of you." "Of me? Oh, no. I'm an old man," he said exultantly. "Do you know how old I am?" He touched his head. "See! The gray hairs!" "Yes--at least a dozen," she said gravely. "Such an old man!" "Thirty-one! Isn't it awful?" "Twenty-eight--that's worse for a woman!" They looked at each other solemnly for a moment. Then she broke into a laugh that had the music of summer, and he joined her.