“It’s too windy.  You’ll catch cold,” he declared.

“Oh, I’m warm, and I love storms!” She stared out into the night, then added, “I’m a stormy creature.”

Again he urged her to return to her tent, and in his voice was such genuine concern that she laid her hand upon his shoulder.  It was a warm, impulsive gesture and it betrayed a grateful appreciation of his solicitude; it was the first familiarity she had ever permitted herself to indulge in, and when she spoke it was in an unusually intimate tone: 

“You’re a good friend, Pierce.  I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

Phillips’ surprise robbed him momentarily of speech.  This woman possessed a hundred moods; a few hours before she had treated him with a cool indifference that was almost studied; now, without apparent reason, she had turned almost affectionate.  Perhaps it was the night, or the solitude, that drew them together; whatever the reason, those first few words, that one impulsive gesture, assured Pierce that they were very close to each other, for the moment at least.

“I’m—­glad,” he said, finally.  “I wish I were more—­I wish—­”

“What?” she queried, when he hesitated.

“I wish you couldn’t do without me.”  It was out; he realized in a panic that his whole secret was hers.  With no faintest intention of speaking, even of hinting at the truth, he had blurted forth a full confession.  She had caught him off guard, and, like a perfect ass, he had betrayed himself.  What would she think?  How would she take his audacity, his presumption?  He was surprised to feel her fingers tighten briefly before her hand was withdrawn.

The Countess Courteau was not offended.  Had it not been for that pressure upon his shoulder Phillips would have believed that his words had gone unheard, for she entirely ignored them.

“Night!  Wind!  Storm!” she said, in a queer, meditative tone.  “They stir the blood, don’t they?  Not yours, perhaps, but mine.  I was always restless.  You see, I was born on the ocean—­on the way over here.  My father was a sailor; he was a stormy-weather man.  At a time like this everything in me quickens, I’m aware of impulses I never feel at other times—­desires I daren’t yield to.  It was on a stormy night that the Count proposed to me.”  She laughed shortly, bitterly.  “I believed him.  I’d believe anything—­I’d do, I’d dare anything—­when the winds are reckless.”  She turned abruptly to her listener and it seemed to him that her eyes were strangely luminous.  “Have you ever felt that way?”

He shook his head.

“Lucky for you; it would be a man’s undoing.  Tell me, what am I?  What do you make of me?” While the young man felt for an answer she ran on:  “I’d like to know.  What sort of woman do you consider me?  How have I impressed you?  Speak plainly—­no sentiment.  You’re a clean-minded, unsophisticated boy.  I’m curious to hear—­”

“I can’t speak like a boy,” he said, gravely, but with more than a hint of resentment in his tone, “for—­I’m not a boy.  Not any longer.”