Marion relaxed, took a long, deep breath and settled again to her trim heels.  She was not filled with terror as Jack had been; though that may have been because she was not cast up here like a piece of driftwood out of her world, nor was she alone.  But Jack paid her the tribute of bowing mentally before her splendid courage.  She gazed a while longer, awed ecstasy in her face.  Then slowly she swung and stared at that other churning cloud behind her—­the crimsoned-tinted cloud of destruction.  She flung out both arms impulsively.

“Oh, you world!” she cried adoringly, unafraid yet worshipping.  “I’d like to be the wind, so I could touch you and kiss you and beat you, and make you love me the way I love you!  I’d rather be a tree and grow up here and swing my branches in the wind and then burn, than be a little petty, piffling human being—­I would!  I’m not afraid of you.  You couldn’t make me afraid of you.  You can storm and rage around all you like.  I only love you for it—­you beautiful thing!”

It made Jack feel as though he had blundered upon a person kneeling in prayer; she was, after all, the goddess she looked, he thought whimsically.  At least she had all the makings of a goddess of the mountain top.  He felt suddenly inferior and gross, and he turned to leave her alone with her beautiful, terrible world.  But manlike he did a frightfully human and earthly thing; he knocked his foot against an empty coal-oil can, and stood betrayed in his purpose of flight.

She turned her head and looked at him like one just waking from a too-vivid dream.  She frowned, and then she smiled with a little ironical twist to her soft curving lips.

“You heard what I said about piffling human beings?” she asked him sweetly.  “That is your catalogue number.  Why for goodness’ sake!  With your hair done in that marcelle pompadour, and that grin, you look exactly like Jack Corey, that Los Angeles boy that all the girls were simply crazy about, till he turned out to be such a perfectly terrible villain!”

CHAPTER ELEVEN

SYMPATHY AND ADVICE

Every bit of color was swept from Jack’s face, save the black of his lashes and eyebrows and the brown of his eyes that looked at her in startled self-betrayal.  He saw the consternation flash into her face when she first understood how truly her random shot had hit the mark, and he dropped upon the bench by the doorway and buried his face in his shaking hands.  But youth does not suffer without making some struggle against the pain.  Suddenly he lifted his head and looked at her with passionate resentment.

“Well, why don’t you run and tell?” he cried harshly.  “There’s the telephone in there.  Why don’t you call up the office and have them send the sheriff hot-footing it up here?  If Jack Corey’s such a villain, why don’t you do something about it?  For the Lord’s sake don’t stand there looking at me as if I’m going to swallow you whole!  Get somebody on the phone, and then beat it before I cut loose and be the perfectly awful villain you think I am!”