"Wonderful!" exclaimed Jean.
"Indeed it is!" murmured the girl. "Shore that is Arizona. I reckon I love THIS. The heights an' depths--the awfulness of its wilderness!"
"An' you want to leave it?"
"Yes an' no. I don't deny the peace that comes to me heah. But not often do I see the Basin, an' for that matter, one doesn't live on grand scenery."
"Child, even once in a while--this sight would cure any misery, if you only see. I'm glad I came. I'm glad you showed it to me first."
She too seemed under the spell of a vastness and loneliness and beauty and grandeur that could not but strike the heart.
Jean took her hand again. "Girl, say you will meet me here," he said, his voice ringing deep in his ears.
"Shore I will," she replied, softly, and turned to him. It seemed then that Jean saw her face for the first time. She was beautiful as he had never known beauty. Limned against that scene, she gave it life--wild, sweet, young life--the poignant meaning of which haunted yet eluded him. But she belonged there. Her eyes were again searching his, as if for some lost part of herself, unrealized, never known before. Wondering, wistful, hopeful, glad-they were eyes that seemed surprised, to reveal part of her soul.
Then her red lips parted. Their tremulous movement was a magnet to Jean. An invisible and mighty force pulled him down to kiss them. Whatever the spell had been, that rude, unconscious action broke it.
He jerked away, as if he expected to be struck. "Girl--I--I"--he gasped in amaze and sudden-dawning contrition--"I kissed you--but I swear it wasn't intentional--I never thought...."
The anger that Jean anticipated failed to materialize. He stood, breathing hard, with a hand held out in unconscious appeal. By the same magic, perhaps, that had transfigured her a moment past, she was now invested again by the older character.
"Shore I reckon my callin' y'u a gentleman was a little previous," she said, with a rather dry bitterness. "But, stranger, yu're sudden."
"You're not insulted?" asked Jean, hurriedly.
"Oh, I've been kissed before. Shore men are all alike."
"They're not," he replied, hotly, with a subtle rush of disillusion, a dulling of enchantment. "Don't you class me with other men who've kissed you. I wasn't myself when I did it an' I'd have gone on my knees to ask your forgiveness.... But now I wouldn't--an' I wouldn't kiss you again, either--even if you--you wanted it."