included him in the searching and astonished wideness of her look.

"You work at The Aura, don't you?" she asked with childlike _brusquerie_.

Dickie's sensitive, undecided mouth settled into mournfulness. He
looked away.

"Yes, ma'am," he said plaintively.

Sheila's widened eyes, still fixed upon him, began to embarrass him. A
flush came up into his face.

She moved her look across him and away to the range.

"It _is_ like that," she said--"like a cold flame, going up--how did you
think of that?"

Dickie looked quickly, gratefully at her. "I kind of felt," he said
lamely, "that I had got to find out what it was like. But"--he shook his
head with his deprecatory smile--"but that don't tell it, Miss Arundel.
It's more than that." He smiled again. "I bet you, you could think of
somethin' better to say about it, couldn't you?"

Sheila laughed. "What a funny boy you are! Not like the others. You don't
even look like them. How old are you? When I first saw you I thought you
were quite grown up. But you can't be much more than nineteen."

"Just that," he said, "but I'll be twenty next month."

"You've always lived here in Millings?"