"Ah—Dick" she said, and met his lips with her warm ones.
He had kissed her a hundred times before; carelessly, or in thoughtless amusement. But the swift passion in those clinging lips thrilled him as anything that Andree said or did had never thrilled him before. He put his hands on her shoulders and kissed her back, twice. Then he let her go, and went down to the barracks with the memory of that first kiss tingling his blood yet.
Andree flung on her fur cap and her coat, and went out. And as she passed the bar Jimmy reached an arm to catch her waist.
"Haven't seen you to-day, Andree," he said. "What"
"Ah—diable!" said Andree, through her teeth, and she boxed his ear with a swinging blow, and ran out.
Jimmy rubbed his ear, looking after her ruefully.
"Lord, she's a handful," he said. "I wouldn't want to be the man she chose to settle down wi'."
Andree fled down the street and along the forest-trail with her eyes bright, and her blood racing in her veins. The keen, sharp air brought the brilliance to her cheeks and quickened her breath, and some vague excitement was driving her. She did not account for it; did not try. She just ran for the joy of running, and the joy of living; skimming over the tramped frozen surface, fleetly and surely as a hare. Then the gladness left her face suddenly, and she stopped, shrugging her shoulders. For Tempest had turned the corner of the trail, and he came to her swiftly. But there was a shiver of superstition in his heart. It was here he had first found Grange's Andree a year ago. Was it here that he was to lose her? He spoke of other things first, to steady himself. Then again he asked her to marry him as he had done so many times before.
"And I can give you so much now that I am Inspector," he added. "So much that you would enjoy having."
He knew better now than to plead to Andree for love. That happiness was not for him yet; perhaps not at all. But all his tenderness, all his manhood was struggling for the right to protect and cherish Grange's Andree. She
