"No reason in the world why Parowan shouldn't be on the map a hundred years from now," he muttered, and began to unlace the first pair of patent-leather shoes he had ever worn.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
BILL LEARNS ABOUT WOMEN FROM 'ER
A mysterious, clotted haze of gray and blue and smoke smudges, shot with rose and deeper tints of carmine; a churning of white foam in an oily sweep of undulating water that caught the lights from the sunset so that they swam through a magic floating world; screaming gulls flapping close, their pink legs hanging straight down like little sticks; bellowing boat whistles, deep siren blasts, pricking lights in the haze. With frankly confessed eagerness, Doris stood with Bill in the bow of the ferry and gazed enraptured, her face pallid with emotion.
Bill looked down at her, knew himself forgotten in that moment of blissful arrival into her dream world. A vague hurt, a slow understanding, sobered his face as he watched her. Then, like a blow that forces open a door, Bill saw. There, mirrored in her eyes, on the tremulous lips, glowing through the pallor of her cheeks, was a joy, an incredulous rapture such as he himself had known, not once, but many times in the past weeks. Doris was trying to feel the reality of a dream come true. Bill remembered poignantly how he had struggled to express that emotion, and the paucity of words that had held him dumb.
He had felt it when his lips first touched the lips of Doris; when she had said that she loved him. Doris—why, Doris had wanted to talk about the gold, about whatever came into her mind. Things, other than their love, could claim her thoughts, while she stood abashed before the miracle. He had thought that Doris was different. She didn't show her feelings much; women were shy about love. It never occurred to him to question the depth of her love until that moment.
"Why didn't she have that look in her eyes—then?" he thought sharply. He had never seen just this look in her face; no, nor anything approaching that look. There was an answer, but Bill shut his mind against it. And then, as if a devil had prompted the words, Doris turned and spoke a sentence which Bill recognized.
"I was always scared to dream I'd ever actually be here," she said, and her voice was hushed. "Oh, Bill-dear, I'm so happy my heart just aches!"