She took it, and they began slowly to mount the last steep blocks. She glanced up at him to smile her thanks for his support, and met his eyes, looking intently at her. The red light strengthened on her face as they ascended. “You’ve the strangest eyes,” he said suddenly. “Do you know what they’re the color of?” “My father used to say they were like a dog’s,” she answered, feeling unable to drop them and yet uneasy under his unflinching gaze. “They’re the color of sherry--exactly the same.” “I won’t let you see them any more if that’s the best you can say of them,” she said, dropping them. “I could say they were the color of beer,” he answered, “but I thought sherry sounded better.” “Beer!” she exclaimed, averting not only her eyes, but her face. “That’s an insult.” “Well, then, I’ll only say in the simplest way what I think. I’m not the kind of man who makes fine speeches--they’re the most beautiful eyes in the world.” “That’s the worst of all,” she answered, extremely confused and not made more comfortable by the thought that she had brought it on herself. “Let’s leave my eyes out of the question.” “All right, I’ll not speak of them again. But I’ll want to see them now and then.” He saw her color mounting, and in the joy of her close proximity, loitering arm in arm up the sordid street, he laughed again in his happiness and said: “When a person owns something that’s rare and beautiful he oughtn’t to be mean about it.” “I suppose not,” said the owner of the rare and beautiful possessions, keeping them sternly out of sight. He continued to look ardently at her, not conscious of what he was doing, his step growing slower and slower. “It’s a long climb,” he said at length. “Yes,” she assented. “Is that why you’re going so slowly?” “Are we going so slowly?” he asked, and as if to demonstrate how slow had been their progress, they both came to a stop like a piece of run-down machinery. They looked at each other for a questioning moment, then burst into simultaneous peals of laughter. One of the last and daintiest charms that nature can give a woman is a lovely laugh. It suggests unexplored riches of tenderness and sweetness, unrevealed capacity for joy and pain, as a harsh and unmusical laugh tells of an arid nature, hard, without juice, devoid of imagination, mystery and passion. Like her mother before her, Mariposa possessed this charm in its highest form. The ripple of sound that flowed from her lips was music, and it cast a spell over the man at whose side she stood, as Lucy’s laugh, twenty-five years before, had cast one over Dan Moreau. “I never heard you laugh before,” he said in delight. “What can I say to make you do it again?” “You didn’t say anything that time,” said Mariposa. “So I suppose the best way is for you to be silent.”