“I wish I had a pillow!” he complained.

I scooped up an armful of the pine-needles, while he watched me lazily, and packed it over and between the roots of the pine-tree.

“You’re a Sister of Charity,” said he, gratefully.  “But I can’t afford to scratch my neck.”  And coolly he took a fold of my brown silk skirt, patted it over the straw, and with a sigh of satisfaction rested his head upon it.

“This is very pleasant!” he sighed.  Presently:  “Your hair looks just as a woman’s hair ought to look, under that brown hat,” he said drowsily, “soft and fair.  And after this, I shall order some brown-silk cushion-covers.  I never knew anything could feel so comfortable and restful!” He closed his eyes.

I sat there, hands locked tightly together, and looked down at his beautiful head, his slim and boyish body; and I felt an aching sense of resentment.  No man has any business to be like that, and then come into the life of a woman named Smith.

He did not move, nor did I. We might have been creatures motionless under a spell, in that Enchanted Wood; until from the outside world came Boris, carrying a wicker basket, in which sandwiches, fruit, a small bottle of wine, and a silver drinking-cup had been carefully packed.

“Boris is used to playing courier.”  His master patted him affectionately.  “Come, Miss Smith.  By the way, that isn’t your real name, though.  Your name is Woman-in-the-Woods.  Mine is—­”

“Fortunatus.”

He raised his brows.  “I was about to say ‘Man-who-is-Hungry,’” he finished, pleasantly.  “I once knew an Indian named Tail-feathers-going-over-the-Hill.  It taught me the value of being explicit as to one’s name.  Here, you shall have the cup, and I’ll drink out of the bottle.  Some of these fine days, Woman-in-the-Woods, I shall take you on a jaunt with me and Boris.”

“It sounds promising,” I admitted, cautiously.

“It is more.  You shall learn all the fine points of out-of-door housekeeping.—­Drink your wine, Woman-in-the-Woods.  You were pale, very pale, when I came upon you.  I was afraid something had been troubling you.”

“Something troubles everybody.”

“Oh, bromidic Miss Smith!—­Drink your wine, please.  And do not look doubtfully upon that sandwich.  My man knows how to build them.”

His man did.  The sandwich was manna.  The wine evidently came from heaven.

“Now you have a color.  I say, is Morenas going to do you, too?”

“Good gracious, no!  But he has sketched Alicia a dozen times at least.”

“And me,” said Mr. Jelnik, gloomily.  “There’s no evading the brute.  I turn like a weathercock; and there he is, with corrugated brow and slitted eyes, studying me!  And the baleful eye of The Author also pursues me.  Between them, I feel skinned.”

“Mr. Morenas says you are a rare but quite perfect type,” I told him, mischievously.

The young man shrugged his shoulders disdainfully.  “Am I a type, Woman-in-the-Woods?” he asked.