ft movements, all in one
rippling piece. "By God, you're not, though!" said he, strode over to
her, snatched the volume from her, threw it back into its place, and
pointed her to her chair.

"You set down an' give heed to me fer a change, Joan Carver," he said,
his smoke-colored eyes smouldering. "I didn't fetch you up here to
read parsons' books an' waste oil. I fetched you up here--to--" He
stopped, choked with a sudden, enormous hurt tenderness and sat down
and fell to smoking and staring, hot-eyed, into the fire.

And Joan sat silent in her place, puzzled, wistful, wounded, her idle
hands folded, looking at him for a while, then absently before her,
and he knew that her mind was busy again with the preacher feller's
books. If he had known better how to explain his heart, if she had
known how to show him the impersonal eagerness of her awakening
mind--! But, savage and silent, they sat there, loving each other,
hurt, but locked each into his own impenetrable life.

After that, Joan changed the hours of her study and neglected
housework and sagebrush-grubbing, but, nonetheless, were Pierre's
evenings spoiled. Perfection of intercourse is the most perishable of
all life's commodities. Now, when he talked, he could not escape the
consciousness of having constrained his audience; she could not escape
her knowledge of his jealousy, the remembrance of his mysterious
outbreak, the irrepressible tug of the story she was reading. So it
went on till snow came and they were shut in, man and wife, with only
each other to watch, a tremendous test of good-fellowship. This
searching intimacy came at a bad time, just after Holliwell's third
visit when he had brought a fresh supply of books.

"There's poetry this time," he said. "Get Pierre to read it aloud to
you."

The suggestion was met by a rude laugh from Pierre.

"I wouldn't be wastin' my time," he jeered.

It was the first rift in his courtesy. Holliwell looked up in sharp
surprise. He saw a flash of the truth, a little wriggle of the green
serpent in Pierre's eyes before they fell. He flushed and glanced at
Joan. She stood by the table in the circle of lamplight, looking over
the new books, but in her eagerness there was less simplicity. She
wore an almost timorous air, accepted his remarks in silence, shot
doubtful looks at Pierre before she answered questions, was an
entirely different Joan. Now Holliwell was angry and he stiffened
toward his host and hostess, drop