He looked at her, drew a great breath, and cried "Ah!" like a man who has reached his goal.
"What do you want?" asked Cynthia, and in spite of her efforts her voice shook.
A South American harvest finds no use for the weak. The man who stood opposite to her was broad and powerful, with a heavy, coarse face, burnt to the color of brick by the sun. The sweat streaked it, and the dirt of many a day clung to it, and it was seamed by exposure. He was of the men who move from estancia to estancia while the harvest lasts, working from sunrise to dark, living upon mate tea and roasted sheep, and earning a pound a day, and thereafter lying soddened in some den until the last centavo has been squandered. A battered black hat was pressed low upon his clotted hair; a month's growth of beard straggled over his chin and cheeks. And his eyes were evil. That, more than any other quality of the man, Cynthia noticed. Their quick glance held her. She was terrified.
"What do you want?" she asked a second time, and her voice wavered still more audibly.
She stood in front of him, her lovely brows, under the big brim of her straw hat, troubled, and her great eyes wide and alert with fear. She was in the poise for flight like a startled deer, yet did not dare to turn to fly. And in the man, as he looked at her, there came a change.
He did not answer her question. But very slowly he smiled, and the smile was spiteful. He nodded his head at her; a malicious contentment overspread his face; and from head to heel his eyes inspected her. They approved her beauty and the simple daintiness of her clothes; they took note of her slenderness of hand and foot; they remarked the lines and supple youth of her figure; and through her white frock they seemed to make sure of the roundness of her limbs. Cynthia grew suddenly hot with shame. This man was appraising her--nothing less. Appraising her as if for a market! Her fear dropped from her. She cried a third time, but with spirit:
"What do you want of me?" and if her voice shook now, it was with a quiver of indignation.
She heard the thud of a horse's hoofs behind her. The reaper heard it, too. Without a word, and without any hurry, he turned away from her and slouched back to his machine. Cynthia's cart the next moment was driven up to her side. She climbed into it and took the reins. The encounter had shaken her more than she had thought. She was trembling, and she drove over the ground quickly, until she saw the slate roof of the house, flashing like silver, from a clump of dark trees quite near.
Then she reined in her horse and turned round. Far away at the edge of the wheat, the man and the machine and the six horses stood out black like a little toy. The clank and rattle of the iron came to her ears through the still air, faintly, like the mechanism of a toy. But Cynthia shivered as she looked back.
"Who is he?" she asked of the old Gaucho. He shrugged his shoulders.