"I beg your pardon. As a matter of fact I've always taken you
seriously."
"Have you, why?"
"Perhaps because I don't know anything about your sex," he answered
teasingly. "I never had time,--they're sealed books to me."
"So this is your first exploring trip?"
"The very first,--and it's not at all what I expected."
A question moved in Elsie's eyes but she did not speak. Clark, taking
in the supple grace of her figure and expanding to the candor of her
spirit, wondered if now, at the apex of his labors, the color of his
future life was being evolved by this girl who was as free and
untainted as the winds of Superior. He had at times attempted
friendships of another kind and found them unsatisfying and pondered
whether this might not be the human solution of that loneliness which
he had admitted to her, months before, was only so far assuaged by
driving himself to the uttermost. Then her voice came in again.
"It was so queer meeting you here, just as if the voice of the rapids
had carried a hundred miles. I always associate you with the rapids."
"But they'll go on forever, and I won't."
"You're doing something better than that," she said swiftly.
He laid down his paddle. "I'd like very much to know just what my new
friend means."
"You're touching the hidden springs of things that will go on forever."
Elsie's voice was vibrant with feeling. "That's the difference between
you and other men I know. You're in the secret."