She sat stiffly erect, unbelief in her eyes. Her hands gripped each other in her lap. She was amazed; not frightened, but something akin to it.
“I want you to let me try to make you smile, always, as you have smiled once to-day. I want to make the world sing for you, so that you will love the world, too. I want to take that look, that hunger look, out of your eyes forever, and put something else in its place. I want every act of mine, as long as I shall live, to add something to your happiness. You! You! Just you!” He held the sheet and tiller with one hand, stretched the other to touch her fingers gently.
“Marie, can’t you—won’t you—take me into your life? Will you marry me—very soon?”
“Marry you!” she said, in a whisper.
She looked about her as if searching for a way of escape. Then she stood up abruptly and ran forward to the very peak of the little craft, and crouched there on her knees, her chin in her hands, her eyes closed, or opening to peer off across the reaches of the lake. Jim could see her shiver now and again as though a chill wind blew over her. She did not speak.
After a time he called to her.
“Marie, I did not mean to frighten you. I—I was abrupt—”
“You did not frighten me,” she said.
He plucked up heart. “I can’t come to you,” he said, yearningly. “I can’t talk to you so far away. Won’t you come back to me?”
She shook her head. “Not now,” she said. “I—Oh, let me think. Let me be quiet.”