er and that
sight. The man ought to have died. He did not deserve his life nor
this love of hers. Even though he had failed to kill the man, he would
not fail to kill her love for him, sooner or later, thought Prosper.
If only the hateful spring would give him time. He must move her from
her memory. She had put her hands about his neck, she had laid her
head against his shoulder, and, if it had been the action of a child,
then she would not have started from him with that sharp memory of
Pierre.

CHAPTER XVI

THE TALL CHILD

There were times, even now, when Prosper tried to argue himself back
into sardonic self-possession. "Pooh!" said his brain, "you were
beside yourself over a loss and then you were shut in for months of
winter alone with this mountain girl, so naturally you are off your
balance." He would school himself while Joan shoveled outdoors. He
would try to see her with critical, clear eyes when she strode in. But
one look at her and he was bemused again. For now she was at a great
height of beauty, vivid with growing strength and purpose, her lips
calm and scarlet, her eyes bright and hopeful. In fact, Joan had made
her plans. She would wait till spring, partly to get back her full
strength, partly to make further progress in her studies, but mostly
in order not to hurt this hospitable Prosper Gael. The naivete of
her gratitude, of her delicate consideration for his feelings, which
continually triumphed over an instinctive fear, would have filled him
with amusement, perhaps with compunction, had he been capable of
understanding them. She was truly sorry that she had hurt him by
running away. She told herself she would not do that again. In the
spring she would make him a speech of thankfulness and of farewell,
and then she would tramp back to Pierre's homestead and win and hold
Pierre's land. As yet, you see, Prosper entered very little into her
conscious life. Somewhere, far down in her, there was a disturbance, a
growing doubt, a something vague and troubling.... Joan had not learnt
to probe her own heart. A sensation was not, or it was. She was
puzzled by the feeling Prosper was beginning to cause her, a feeling
of miserable complexity; but she was not yet mentally equipped for the
confronting of complexity. It was necessary for an emotion to rush at
Joan and throw down, as it were, her heart before she recognized it;
even then she might not give it a name. She would act, however, and
with vi