For ten evenings this went on, Pierre's heart slowly heating itself,

until, all at once, the flame leaped.

Joan had untied her apron and reached up for her book. Pierre had been

waiting, hoping that of her free will she might prefer his company to

the "parson feller's"--for in his ignorance those books were jealously

personified--but, without a glance in his direction, she had turned as

usual to the shelf.

"You goin' to read?" asked Pierre hoarsely. It was a painful effort to

speak.

She turned with a childish look of astonishment. "Yes, Pierre."

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He stood up with one of his lithe, swift 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.




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