"Oh, yes, I am. But, I was up late last night; I was bothered some about a trial balance; that's all. I'm going to take this evening off. I want to try that accompaniment, if you will sing that new serenade for me."
He stood watching them from the entrance, Mason following with the salmon, while they crossed up the dock, then he went back to his desk. She had reached over the railing, in passing, to lay on his ledger a branch of rhododendron. He picked it up, smiling a little, and looked at it. No one else was in the store at the moment, and he touched the petals gently; his hand moved over the stiff, spiky leaves. "So," he told himself, "So, she has left me a bit of the woods. And she is like this plant; straight and self-reliant and independent like the stem; and with this same nice color of the blossom in her cheek." He laid the cool pink cluster against his own face; he pressed it with his lips. Then, suddenly, his whole frame began to tremble; his shoulders heaved. "I love her; I love—her," and he crushed the flower between his palms and threw it down. "My God, how can I help loving her?"
Two hours later, when Forrest had finished his rounds of the mills, he found her with Mrs. Kingsley at the burning slabpile. Mason, with his wooden peg planted firmly in the sawdust as a brace, steadied the baby on an inverted keg, and whirled chips into the fire for his amusement. The strong light brought out the indigo anchor tattooed on the sailor's big, rough hand. The young mother watched his maneuvers. She leaned with her elbow on a projecting shelf of lumber, and her head and throat were wrapped, Madonna-wise, in a black lace scarf. Alice was seated near her on a great fir block. The flames illumined her uncovered ruddy hair. She was interested in the efforts of a workman who, a little apart, but availing himself of the firelight, was mending a pair of jeans. Another patched a shoe, and farther still, a trio drew up an empty box, and converting it into a table, started a spirited game of poker. She commenced to hum a bit of the gypsy chorus from the Bohemian Girl; and as Forrest approached she looked up smiling, and took up the words. He seated himself by her. Louise's contralto caught the measure, and presently the harmony was rounded by his fine baritone. They sang on through all the familiar parts; the arias, duets, choruses; and once more the romance and mystery of the place and night gave setting to this man and spoke for him. The girl looked up absently to the trees on the bluff. High up a fallen hemlock, caught on a stony spur, reared its gnarled roots from the gloom. Had they not rested today on the brink of the canyon? Had they not threaded the windfall? And this sound of running water, was it not the near thunder of the Des Chutes?
At last the child grew tired and his mother took him away to bed. Forrest went down to the store for his violin, and Alice walked that way with him. "I want to speak to you about Louise," she said. "She tells me nothing, she is so proud, but something troubles her. You have noticed it?"
"Yes," he answered, "yes, I have noticed it; but I know she is a very sensitive woman. She would face any hardship from a sense of duty; it amounts to martyrdom. She exacts, also, considerable from others."
"Oh, I understand all that. Of course she came here to the mills because she thought she owed it to Philip. But he is seldom here. Is it really the business keeps him away?"
"Yes, it's business, sometimes, and—sometimes—well, if you must know, it's a gay crowd and a pleasant evening over in town."
"I was confident of it." She paused, ruffling her brows, then she added earnestly, "But you don't know what a security it is to me, Paul, to feel that you are here, and will take care of her."
He shook his head. "I will do what I can always, of course, but it's less than you think."
"It's more than you think. It's meeting the small emergencies of every day; sometimes through Mason or Sing; sometimes personally, in your quiet way. And it's tiding her through the slow evenings when you can; she loves your violin, and the practice will be a help to you both."