As he spoke he made a determined pause, a stone’s throw from the rippling stream that marks the watershed; and Elizabeth must needs pause with him.  Beyond the stream, Philip sat lounging among rugs and cushions brought from the car, Anderson and the American beside him.  Anderson’s fair, uncovered head and broad shoulders were strongly thrown out against the glistening snows of the background.  Upon the three typical figures—­the frail English boy—­the Canadian—­the spare New Yorker—­there shone an indescribable brilliance of light.  The energy of the mountain sunshine and the mountain air seemed to throb and quiver through the persons talking—­through Anderson’s face, and his eyes fixed upon Elizabeth—­through the sunlit water—­the sparkling grasses—­the shimmering spectacle of mountain and summer cloud that begirt them.

“Dear Mr. Arthur, of course we shall meet again in Rome!” said Elizabeth, rosy, and not knowing in truth what to say.  “This place has turned my head a little!”—­she looked round her, raising her hand to the spectacle as though in pretty appeal to him to share her own exhilaration—­“but it will be all over so soon—­and you know I don’t forget old friends—­or old pleasures.”

Her voice wavered a little.  He looked at her, with parted lips, and a rather hostile, heated expression; then drew back, alarmed at his own temerity.

“Of course I know it!  You must forgive a bookworm his grumble.  Shall I help you over the stream?”

But she stepped across the tiny streamlet without giving him her hand.

As they later rejoined the party, Morton, the Chief Justice, and Mariette returned from a saunter in the course of which they too had been chatting to the engine-drivers.

“I know the part of the country those men want,” the American was saying.  “I was all over Alberta last fall—­part of it in a motor car.  We jumped about those stubble-fields in a way to make a leopard jealous!  Every bone in my body was sore for weeks afterwards.  But it was worth while.  That’s a country!”—­he threw up his hands.  “I was at Edmonton on the day when the last Government lands, the odd numbers, were thrown open.  I saw the siege of the land offices, the rush of the new population.  Ah, well, of course, we’re used to such scenes in the States.  There’s a great trek going on now in our own Southwest.  But when that’s over, our free land is done.  Canada will have the handling of the last batch on this planet.”

“If Canada by that time is not America,” said Mariette, drily.

The American digested the remark.

“Well,” he said, at last, with a smile, “if I were a Canadian, perhaps I should be a bit nervous.”

Thereupon, Mariette with great animation developed his theme of the “American invasion.”  Winnipeg was one danger spot, British Columbia another.  The “peaceful penetration,” both of men and capital, was going on so rapidly that a movement for annexation, were it once started in certain districts of Canada, might be irresistible.  The harsh and powerful face of the speaker became transfigured; one divined in him some hidden motive which was driving him to contest and belittle the main currents and sympathies about him.  He spoke as a prophet, but the faith which envenomed the prophecy lay far out of sight.