He looked at her with a quick intentness, smiled a little. “Why?” he asked. “What are you thinking?”
She shook her head. “I don’t know, exactly. Just that sometimes I felt you’re hiding something; that you’re not thinking about the things you—seem to think about.”
He said good-naturedly, “You’re making a mystery out of me.”
“A little,” she admitted.
“There’s no mystery,” he said; and he added softly: “There’s a deal more mystery about you, to me.”
He had never, as they say, made love to her. Yet there was that in his tone now which made her flush softly and look away from him. Watching her he hesitated. His hand touched hers. She drew her hand away and rose abruptly.
“I must go back to the house,” she said. “It’s time I was starting supper.”
He was on his feet, facing her; but there was only cheerful friendliness in his eyes. He would not alarm her. “Come again,” he said. “I like to have you come.”
“You never come to the house, except for eggs and things. You ought to come and see us.”
“Perhaps I will,” he said; and he watched her as she climbed the knoll and disappeared. His eyes were very gentle; there would have been in them an exultant light if he could have seen the girl, once out of his sight, stop and look back to where the smoke of his little fire rose above the trees.