She brought water in a basin, a sponge, and a piece of clean linen which she speedily reduced to strips; and after helping me remove the parka proceeded to dress the gash in my forearm with deft tenderness. During this ministering to my need we were both silent. When it was done she tilted her head on one side and surveyed her handiwork, for all the world like a small bird perched on a limb and looking down. This fanciful notion struck me as rather absurd, and the more I thought of it the more absurd it seemed, till I found myself smiling broadly. Likening Jessie Montell to a saucy bird was, in a way, a very far-fetched comparison. She was distinctly unbirdlike—apart from that trick of tipping her head sidewise and gazing speculatively at whatsoever interested her.
“I’m really and truly sorry I got you into such a scrape,” she apologized sweetly. “I suppose I should have thrown the meat to those ferocious things. But dear me, I’d toiled so over it, getting it thawed and fixed for papa’s supper, that I hated to see it literally go to the dogs. You mustn’t let the cold get into that cut. You’ll have a nasty sore if you do.”
“Oh, I’ll see that the cold doesn’t have a chance at it,” I assured her. “And you don’t need to feel guilty on my account. I’d rather it was my arm than yours. I’m only too glad to pay a little interest on my debt.”
She looked puzzled for a second.
“Oh,” she said then, “you mean that time on the Moon. There’s no debt to me. Those ruffians would have paid little heed to me. Mr. Barreau——”
She colored and broke off abruptly, with an impatient gesture.
“Papa has been telling me about you,” she changed the subject. “Another St. Louis unfortunate”—smilingly—“aren’t you. As the Scotch say, I feel ‘verra weel acquentit.’ Your mother and my aunt Lois were more or less intimate. So that I know you by proxy, in a way.”
I don’t recollect just what reply I made. If she were trying to put me at my ease she made a woeful mess of it the very next minute, for she demanded to know, with embarrassing directness:
“Why in the world didn’t you stand your ground at Benton? Whatever possessed you to cross the line?”
“Well, you see—I—it was——” and there I halted lamely. I couldn’t discuss the ethics of my flight with this self-sufficient young woman. My grounds for self-justification in that particular instance, were rather untenable. I couldn’t explain the psychology of the thing to her, when I couldn’t quite grasp it myself. I couldn’t honestly admit that I had refused to stay and face the consequences of Tupper’s sudden end at my hands because I was overwhelmed with fear. I didn’t believe that myself. Even if I had believed it, I would have been ashamed to admit frankly to that gray-eyed girl that I had run away because I was afraid. It had been a peculiar situation for me, one that I could hardly attempt to make clear to her. With Barreau it had been different. He seemed to understand, to divine how and why I did such and such a thing at such a time and place, with but a meager explanation from me. Certain effects invariably led him intuitively to first causes.