picking at them when"--

"Ye are goin' too fast for me now, sor. He was not that description of a
man, nayther the height nor the hair of him. Sure't is a pity for ye
comin' this far, and him not the man at all. Faith, I wish I was the man
meself! I wonder at Joe Stratton anyhow! He's a very hasty man, is Joe. He
jumps in wit' both feet, so he does. I could have told ye that."

* * * * *

Moya, always helplessly natural, and now very tired as well, when Paul
described with his usual gravity this anti-climax, fell below all the
dignities at once in a burst of childish giggling. Paul looked on with an
embarrassed smile, like a puzzled affectionate dog at the incomprehensible
mirth of humans. Paul was certainly deficient in humor and therefore in
breadth. But what woman ever loved her lover the less for having
discovered his limitations? Humor runs in families of the intenser
cultivation. The son of the soil remains serious in the face of life's and
nature's ironies.




XVIII


THE STAR IN THE EAST

So the search paused, while the searchers rested and revised their plans.
Spring opened in the valley as if for them alone. There were mornings