Part 24 (1/2)

”No. Why should I be?”

”That's what I want to know. You don't like me, little lady, is that it?”

”I neither like nor dislike you. I don't think of you.”

She immediately regretted the words. She was so completely a woman, so dowered with the instinct of attraction, that she realized they were not the words of indifference.

”My thoughts are full of other people,” she said hastily, trying to amend the mistake, and that was spoiled by a rush of color that suddenly dyed her face.

She looked over the horse's head, her anger now turned upon herself.

The man made no answer, but she knew that he was watching her. They paced on for a silent moment then he said:

”Why are you blus.h.i.+ng?”

”I am not,” she cried, feeling the color deepening.

”You've told two lies,” he answered. ”You said you weren't angry, and you're mad all through, and now you say you're not blus.h.i.+ng, and your face is as pink as one of those little flat roses that grow on the prairie. It's all right to get mad and blush, but I'd like to know why you do it. I made you mad someway or other, I don't know how. Have _I_ made you blush, too?” he leaned nearer trying to look at her.

”How'd I do that?”

She had a sidelong glimpse of his face, quizzical, astonished, full of piqued interest. She struggled with the mortification of a petted child, suddenly confronted by a stranger who finds its caprices only ridiculous and displeasing. Under the new sting of humiliation she writhed, burning to retaliate and make him see the height of her pedestal.

”Yes, I _have_ told two lies,” she said. ”I was angry and I _am_ blus.h.i.+ng, and it's because I'm in a rage with you.”

The last touch was given when she saw that his surprise contained the bitter and disconcerting element of amus.e.m.e.nt.

”Isn't that just what I said, and you denied it?” he exclaimed. ”Now _why_ are you in a rage with me?”

”Because--because--well, if you're too stupid to know why, or are just pretending, I won't explain. I don't intend to ride with you any more.

Please don't try and keep up with me.”

She gave her reins a shake and her horse started on a brisk canter. As she sped away she listened for his following hoof beats, for she made no doubt he would pursue her, explain his conduct, and ask her pardon.

The request not to keep up with her he would, of course, set aside.

David would have obeyed it, but this man of the mountains, at once domineering and stupid, would take no command from any woman. She kept her ear trained for the rhythmic beat in the distance and decided when she heard it she would increase her speed and not let him catch her till she was up with the train. Then she would coldly listen to his words of apology and have the satisfaction of seeing him look small, and probably not know what to say.

Only it didn't happen that way. He made no attempt to follow. As she galloped across the plain he drew his horse to a walk, his face dark and frowning. Her scorn and blush had left his blood hot. Her last words had fired his anger. He had known her antagonism, seen it in her face on the night when Bella was sick, felt its sting when she turned from him to laugh with the others. And it had stirred him to a secret irritation. For he told himself she was only a baby, but a pretty baby, on whose brown and rosy face and merry slits of eyes a man might like to look. Now he gazed after her swearing softly through his beard and holding his horse to its slowest step. As her figure receded he kept his eyes upon it. They were long-sighted eyes, used to great distances, and they watched, intent and steady, to see if she would turn her head.

”d.a.m.n her,” he said, when the dust of the train absorbed her. ”Does she think she's the only woman in the world?”

After supper that evening Susan called David over to sit on the edge of her blanket. This was a rare favor. He came hurrying, all alight with smiles, cast himself down beside her and twined his fingers in her warm grasp. She answered his hungry glance with a sidelong look, glowingly tender, and David drew the hand against his cheek. n.o.body was near except Daddy John and Courant, smoking pipes on the other side of the fire.

”Do you love me?” he whispered, that lover's text for every sermon which the unloving find so irksome to answer, almost to bear.

But now she smiled and whispered,

”Of course, silly David.”

”Ah, Susan, you're awakening,” he breathed in a shaken undertone.