It is probable that had Ida stooped to diplomacy, she would have been beaten, but, as it was, her uncompromising imperiousness stood her in good stead.
In any case, she went up the river alone with Weston on several occasions, in spite of Mrs.Kinnaird, and one morning the two sat together among the boulders beside a pool not far above the fall.
There had been heavy rain, and the stream, which had risen, swirled in an angry eddy along the rock that rose close in front of them from that side of the pool.

A great drift-log, peeled white, with only stumps of branches left, had jammed its thinner top on a half-submerged ledge, and the great butt, which was water borne, every now and then smote against the rock.

The pines along the river were still wet, and the wilderness was steeped in ambrosial odors.

Ida sat with thoughtful eyes regarding the endless rows of trunks, through which here and there a ray of dazzling sunlight struck; but her whole attention was not occupied with that great colonnade.
"I think you were right when you said that the bush gets hold of one," she said.

"I sometimes feel that I don't want to go back to the cities at all." Weston smiled, though there was something curious in his manner.