THE ANCIENT PEOPLE
ing force. When they are not around, they want a girl to be—extinct," he waved his hand. "Old fellows like Mr. Nathanmeyer understand your kind; but among the young ones, you are rather lucky to have found me. Even I was n't always so wise. I 've had my time of thinking it would not bore me to be the Apollo of a homey flat, and I 've paid out a trifle to learn better. All those things get very tedious unless they are hooked up with an idea of some sort. It 's because we don't come out here only to look at each other and drink coffee that it 's so pleasant to—look at each other." Fred drew on his pipe for a while, studying Thea's abstraction. She was staring up at the far wall of the canyon with a troubled expression that drew her eyes narrow and her mouth hard. Her hands lay in her lap, one over the other, the fingers interlacing. "Suppose," Fred came out at length,—"suppose I were to offer you what most of the young men I know would offer a girl they 'd been sitting up nights about: a comfortable flat in Chicago, a summer camp up in the woods, musical evenings, and a family to bring up. Would it look attractive to you?"
Thea sat up straight and stared at him in alarm, glared into his eyes. "Perfectly hideous!" she exclaimed.
Fred dropped back against the old stonework and laughed deep in his chest. "Well, don't be frightened. I won't offer them. You 're not a nest-building bird. You know I always liked your song, Me for the jolt of the breakers! I understand."
She rose impatiently and walked to the edge of the cliff. "It 's not that so much. It 's waking up every morning with the feeling that your life is your own, and your strength is your own, and your talent is your own; that you 're all there, and there 's no sag in you." She stood for a moment as if she were tortured by uncertainty, then turned suddenly back to him. "Don't talk about these things any more now," she entreated. "It is n't that I
317
