“There has been a change,” she interrupted him.  “Sit down, Philip —­there!” She nestled herself on a stool, close to his feet, and looked up at him, her hands clasped under her chin, radiantly lovely.  “You told me once that girls like me simply fluttered over the top of life like butterflies; that we couldn’t understand life, or live it, until somewhere—­at some time—­we came into touch with nature.  Do you remember?  I was consumed with rage then —­at your frankness, at what I considered your impertinence.  I couldn’t get what you said out of my mind.  And I’m trying it.”

“And you like it?” He put the question almost eagerly.

“Yes.”  She was looking at him steadily, her beautiful gray eyes meeting his own in a silence that stirred him deeply.  He had never seen her more beautiful.  Was it the firelight on her face, the crimson leapings of the flames, that gave her skin a richer hue?  Was it the mingling of fire and shadow that darkened her cheeks?  An impulse made him utter the words which passed through his mind.

“You have already tried it,” he said.  “I can see the effects of it in your face.  It would take weeks in the forests to do that.”

The gray eyes faltered; the flush deepened.

“Yes, I have tried it.  I spent a half of the summer at our cottage on the lake.”

“But it is not tan,” he persisted, thrilled for a moment by the discoveries he was making.  “It is the wind; it is the open; it is the smoke of camp-fires; it is the elixir of balsam and cedar and pine.  That is what I see in your face—­unless it is the fire.”

“It is the fire, partly,” she said.  “And the rest is the wind and the open of the seas we have come across, and the sting of icebergs.  Ugh:  my face feels like nettles!”

She rubbed her cheeks with her two hands, and then held up one hand to Philip.

“Look,” she said.  “It’s as rough as sand-paper.  Isn’t that a change?  I didn’t even wear gloves on the ship.  I’m an enthusiast.  I’m going down there with you, and I’m going to fight.  Now have you got anything to say against me, Mr. Philip?”

There was a lightness in her words, and yet not in her voice.  In her manner was an uneasiness, mingled with an almost childish eagerness for him to answer, which Philip could not understand.  He fancied that once or twice he had caught the faintest sign of a break in her voice.

“You really mean to hazard this adventure?” he cried, softly, in his astonishment.  “You, whom wild horses couldn’t drag into the wilderness, as you once told me!”

“Yes,” she affirmed, drawing her stool back out of the increasing heat of the fire.  Her face was almost entirely in shadow now, and she did not look at Philip.  “I am beginning to—­to love adventure,” she went on, in an even voice.  “It was an adventure coming up.  And when we landed down there something curious happened.  Did you see a girl who thought that she knew me—­”