“You pretty thing!” she cooed to it.  “What does ail people, that they sit around and talk about you and make up rhymes about you, when you just want them to come out and love you!  You darling!  Words only make you cheap.  Now whisper to me, all about when you woke up last spring and found the sun warm and waiting—­Go on—­tell me about it, and what you said to the creek, and all.”

Having listened to Kate’s dramatic rendition of the poem he liked, the professor went over and made himself comfortable in the hammock and began talking again about the fire.  It was a magnificent spectacle, he declared, although he was really too close to it to obtain the best view.  A lot of fine timber was ruined, of course; but fortunately not a tree on any of their claims had been touched.  The wind had blown the flames in another direction.

“It would have been terrible to have a fire start in our timber,” he went on.  “We should lose all that we have put into the venture so far—­and that would mean a good deal to us all.  As it stands now, we have had a narrow escape.  Did you go up where you could obtain a view of the fire, Kate?”

“No, I didn’t.”  Kate poured herself out a glass of lemonade.  “I was so worried about Marion I couldn’t think of anything else.  And when the man stopped and told me where she was, it was dark and I was afraid to go off alone.  Douglas, I never spent as miserable a night in all my life.  The tremendous risk you and Fred were taking made me fairly wild with anxiety—­and then Marion’s performance coming up on top of that—­”

“What was Marion’s performance?  Did she sit by the creek again until after dark, refusing to stir?” He smiled tolerantly.  “I know how trying Marion’s little peculiarities can be.  But you surely wouldn’t take them seriously, Kate.”

“Oh, no, I suppose not.  But when it comes to getting herself caught on the other side of the fire, and going up to that lookout station and staying all night, and nobody up there except the lookout man—­”

“No!  By George, did she do that?”

“Yes, she did, and I think it’s perfectly awful!  I don’t suppose she could get back, after the fire got started,” she admitted grudgingly, “but she might have done something, don’t you think?  She could have gone down the other side, it seems to me.  I know I’d have gotten back somehow.  And what hurts me, Douglas, is the way she passed it over, as though it was nothing!  She knew how worried I was, and she didn’t seem to care at all.  She made a joke of it.”

“Well!  By George, I am surprised.  But Marion is inclined to be a trifle self-centered, I have noticed.  Probably she doesn’t realize your point of view at all.  I am sure she likes you too much to hurt you deliberately, Kate.  And young people nowadays have such different standards of morals.  She may actually feel that it isn’t shocking, and she may be hurt at your apparent lack of confidence in her.”