“Why!” exclaimed the artist, “that is exactly what I wanted it to say.  When I saw this place, and heard the waters over there, like a great organ; and saw how the sunshine falls through the trees; I felt as you say, and I am trying to paint the picture so that those who see it will feel that way too.”

Her face was aglow with enthusiastic understanding as she cried eagerly, “Oh, I know!  I know!  I’m like that with my music!  When I look at the mountains sometimes—­or at the trees and flowers, or hear the waters sing, or the winds call—­I—­I get so full and so—­so kind of choked up inside that it hurts; and I feel as though I must try to tell it—­and then I take my violin and try and try to make the music say what I feel.  I never can though—­not altogether.  But you have made your picture say what you feel.  That’s what makes it so right, isn’t it?  They said in Fairlands that you were a great artist, and I understand why, now.  It must be wonderful to put what you see and feel into a picture like that—­where nothing can ever change or spoil it.”

Aaron King laughed with boyish embarrassment.  “Oh, but I’m not a great artist, you know.  I am scarcely known at all.”

She looked at him with her great, blue eyes sincerely troubled.  “And must one be known—­to be great?” she asked.  “Might not an artist be great and still be unknown?  Or, might not one who was really very, very”—­again she seemed to search for a word and as she found it, smiled—­“very small, be known all over the world?  The newspapers make some really bad people famous, sometimes, don’t they?  No, no, you are joking.  You do not really think that being known to the world and greatness are the same.”

The man, studying her closely, saw that she was speaking her thoughts as openly as a child.  Experimentally, he said, “If putting what you feel into your work is greatness, then you are a great artist, for your music does make one feel as though it came from the mountains, themselves.”

She was frankly pleased, and cried intimately, “Oh! do you like my music?  I so wanted you to.”

It did not occur to her to ask when he had heard her music.  It did not occur to him to explain.  They, neither of them, thought to remember that they had not been introduced.  They really should have pretended that they did not know each other.

“Sometimes,” she continued with winsome confidence, “I think, myself, that I am really a great violinist—­and then, again,”—­she added wistfully,—­“I know that I am not.  But I am sure that I wouldn’t like to be famous, at all.”

He laughed.  “Fame doesn’t seem to matter so much, does it; when one is up here in the hills and the canyon gates are closed.”

She echoed his laughter with quick delight.  “Did you see that?  Did you see those great doors open to let you in, and then close again behind you as if to shut the world outside?  But of course you would.  Any one who could do that”—­she pointed to the canvas—­“would not fail to see the canyon gates.”  With her eyes again upon the picture, she seemed once more to forget the presence of the painter.