She rose and came over to look at the dead deer.
"What beautiful animals they are!" she said. "Isn't it a pity to kill them?"
"It's a pity, too, to kill cattle and sheep and pigs, to haul fish by the gills out of the sea," MacRae replied; "to trap marten and mink and fox and beaver and bear for their skins. But men must eat and women must wear furs."
"How horribly logical you are," Betty murmured. "You make a natural sympathy appear wishy-washy sentimentalism."
She reseated herself on the log. MacRae sat down beside her. He looked at her searchingly. He could not keep his eyes away. A curious inconsistency was revealed to him. He sat beside Betty, responding to the potent stimuli of her nearness and wishing pettishly that she were a thousand miles away, so that he would not be troubled by the magic of her lips and eyes and unruly hair, the musical cadences of her voice. There was a subtle quality of expectancy about her, as if she sat there waiting for him to say something, do something, as if her mere presence were powerful to compel him to speak and act as she desired. MacRae realized the fantasy of those impressions. Betty sat looking at him calmly, her hands idle in her lap. If there were in her soul any of the turmoil that was fast rising in his, it was not outwardly manifested by any sign whatever. For that matter, MacRae knew that he himself was placid enough on the surface. Nor did he feel the urge of inconsequential speech. There was no embarrassment in that mutual silence, only the tug of a compelling desire to take her in his arms, which he must resist.
"There are times," Betty said at last, "when you live up to your nickname with a vengeance."
"There are times," MacRae replied slowly, "when that is the only wise thing for a man to do."
"And you, I suppose, rather pride yourself on being wise in your day and generation."
There was gentle raillery in her tone.
"I don't like you to be sarcastic," he said.