her eyes sought, the dependence of her sheltered
girlhood gone from her as the great adventure called upon untouched
energies and untried forces. It was like looking back on another girl,
or like a woman looking back on a child.

She had often spoken to David of these past days, and saw that her
descriptions charmed him. He had asked her questions about it and been
surprised that she did not miss the old existence more. To him it had
seemed ideal, and he told her that that was the way he should like to
live and some day would, with just such a servant as Daddy John, and a
few real friends, and a library of good books. His enthusiasm made her
dimly realize the gulf between them--the gulf between the idealist and
the materialist--that neither had yet recognized and that only she, of
the two, instinctively felt. The roughness of the journey irked David.
The toil of the days wore on his nerves. She could see that it pained
him to urge the tired animals forward, to lash them up the stream banks
and drive them past the springs. And only half understanding his
character--fine where she was obtuse, sensitive where she was
invulnerable, she felt the continued withdrawal from him, the
instinctive shrinking from the man who was not her mate.

She had silently acquiesced in the idea, entertained by all the train,
that she would marry him. The doctor had intimated to her that he
wished it and from her childhood her only real religion had been to
please her father. Yet half a dozen times she had stopped the proposal
on the lover's lips. And not from coquetry either. Loth and reluctant
she clung to her independence. A rival might have warmed her to a more
coming-on mood, but there was no rival. When by silence or raillery
she had shut off the avowal she was relieved and yet half despised him
for permitting her to take the lead. Why had he not forced her to
listen? Why had he not seized her and even if she struggled, held her
and made her hear him? She knew little of men, nothing of love, but
she felt, without putting her thoughts even to herself, that to a man
who showed her he was master she would have listened and surrendered.

Riding back to the camp she felt a trifle remorseful about her
behavior. Some day she would marry him--she had got far enough to
admit that--and perhaps it was unkind of her not to let the matter be
settled. And at that she gave a petulant wriggle of her shoulders
under her cotton blouse.