Leora but for her own rosy sweetness. She was wearing a tweed jacket, with a tam, a flamboyant scarf, and the first breeches any girl had dared to display in Nautilus. She patted Martin's knee, and when they rode behind the sled on a perilous toboggan, she held his waist, resolutely.
She was calling him "Dr. Martin" now, and he had come to a warm "Orchid."
At the cabin there was a clamor of disembarkation. Together Martin and Orchid carried in the hamper of food; together they slid down the hillocks on skiis. When their skiis were entangled, they rolled into a drift, and as she clung to him, unafraid and unembarrassed, it seemed to him that in the roughness of tweeds she was but the softer and more wonderful—eyes fearless, cheeks brilliant as she brushed the coating of wet snow from them, flying legs of a slim boy, shoulders adorable in their pretense of sturdy boyishness—
But "I'm a sentimental fool! Leora was right!" he snarled at himself. "I thought you had some originality! And poor little Orchid—she'd be shocked if she knew how sneak-minded you are!"
But poor little Orchid was coaxing, "Come on, Dr. Martin, let's shoot off that high bluff. We're the only ones that have any pep."
"That's because we're the only young ones."
"It's because you're so young. I'm dreadfully old. I just sit and moon when you rave about your epidemics and things."
He saw that, with her infernal school physician, Leora was sliding on a distant slope. It may have been pique and it may have been relief that he was licensed to be alone with Orchid, but he ceased to speak to her as though she were a child and he a person laden with wisdom; ceased to speak to her as though he were looking over his shoulder. They raced to the high bluff. They skiied down it and fell; they had one glorious swooping slide, and wrestled in the snow.
They returned to the cabin together, to find the others away. She stripped off her wet sweater and patted her soft blouse. They ferreted out a thermos of hot coffee, and he looked at her as though he was going to kiss her, and she looked back at him as though she did not mind. As they laid out the food they hummed with the intimacy of understanding, and when she trilled, "Now hurry up, lazy one, and put those cups on that
