Paul watched his companion as he talked.  She was, as always, quite unself-conscious.  She sat most becomingly framed by the lofty rise of oak and redwood and maple trees about her.  Her sombrero had slipped back on her braids, and the honest, untouched beauty of her thoughtful face struck Paul forcibly.  He wondered if she had ever been in love—­what her manner would be to the man she loved.

“What did you come for, Paul?” She was ending some long sentence with the question.

“Come here?” Paul said.  “Oh, Lord, there seemed to be reasons enough, though I can’t remember now why I ever thought I’d stay.”

“You came straight from college?”

“No,” he said, a little uneasily; “no.  I finished three years ago.  You see, my mother married an awfully rich old guy named Steele, the last year I was at college; and he gave me a desk in his office.  He has two sons, but they’re not my kind.  Nice fellows, you know, but they work twenty hours a day, and don’t belong to any clubs,—­ they’ll both die rich, I guess,—­and whenever I was late, or forgot something, or beat it early to catch a boat, they’d go to the old man.  And he’d ask mother to speak to me.”

“I see,” said Patricia.

“After a while he got me a job with a friend of his in a Philadelphia iron-works,” said the boy; “but that was a rotten job.  So I came back to New York; and I’d written a sketch for an amateur theatrical thing, and a manager there wanted me to work it up—­said he’d produce it.  I tinkered away at that for a while, but there was no money in it, and Steele sent me out to see how I’d like working in one of the Humboldt lumber camps.  I thought that sounded good.  But I got my leg broken the first week, and had to wire him from the hospital for money.  So, when I got well again, he sent me a night wire about this job, and I went to see Kahn the next day, and came up here.”

“I see,” she said again.  “And you don’t think you’ll stay?”

“Honestly, I can’t, Patricia.  Honest—­you don’t know what it is!  I could stand Borneo, or Alaska, or any place where the climate and customs and natives stirred things up once in a while.  But this is like being dead!  Why, it just makes me sick to see the word ’New York’ on the covers of magazines—­I’m going crazy here.”

She nodded seriously.

“Yes, I know.  But you’ve got to do something.  And since your course was electrical engineering—!  And the next job mayn’t be half so easy, you know—!”

“Well, it’ll be a little nearer Broadway, believe me.  No, I’m sorry.  I never knew two dandier people than you and your brother, and I like the work, but—!”

He drew a long breath on the last word, and Miss Chisholm sighed, too.

“I’m sorry,” she said, staring at the big seal ring on her finger.  “I tell you frankly that I think you’re making a mistake.  I don’t argue for Alan’s sake or mine, though we both like you thoroughly, and your being here would make a big difference this winter.  But I think you’ve made a good start with the company, and it’s a good company, and I think, from what you’ve said to-day, and other hints you’re given me, that you’d make your mother very happy by writing her that you think you’ve struck your groove.  However!”