“Oh, how can I thank you, Mr. Smith?” Impulsively she seized his hand in both her own, artlessly as a child might do it.
Not even saint might have resisted that delicate, desirable presence so near. Acey Smith was far from saint. His long, powerful hands closed over hers, a devil of gleaming black triumph leaping to the eyes that feasted on her face.
But even as she drew away, trembling like a captured bird, he released her abruptly. His head shot forward and he whirled with his back toward her, his hands cupping at his face in the convulsive fashion of one who is strangling.
She was standing mute in stupefied fright when he faced her again, quite his former self, a trace of a shamed smile on his lips. “I am sorry,” he offered in a contrite tone.
“It was perhaps my fault—” She started to say that before its significance struck her.
“It was not!” he declared. “I had forgotten for the moment that—that I am merely a means to an end. It will not happen again.”
The girl did her best to hide her mystification. Before he left Acey Smith informed her the tugs plying daily between the pulp camp and the city were at her service. He had made arrangements not only for her passage back and forth, but for the carrying of such supplies out as she needed from time to time. This would be much more satisfactory than depending on the motor-boat, he told her, as from now on the weather on the northern reaches of Superior was not dependable.
As for the unexplained purpose for which she had been brought to the island, he hoped she would be tolerant of a delay in bringing things about that would not only take time but patience and foresight on the part of others. He did not mention J.C.X. again nor the meeting he had promised to arrange for Miss Stone. But intuitively the latter knew two things; the one was that he would be as good as his word and the other that he almost dreaded mention of J.C.X.
Besides, Josephine Stone was but two generations removed from Canadian pioneer stock, and, like the women of her race, was not prone to question the moods and whimsicalities of men of the forests.