At the works she never noticed him, nor he her. Once, indeed, he had wanted her to leave and take a little house somewhere, but her eyes had flashed terribly at the first words.
"I 'm sorry, Jeanie," he faltered. "I 'm queer and sorry."
"You hurt me," she confessed. "You did so." She relented at his distress. "Ah, sure, don't take on about it. A wee word—it comes out so easy. I should not have looked so fierce. But I know you did n't mean to belittle me, Aleck."
He could never quite understand her. No woman in his life had ever acted so. There had been venal women, and foolish women, and women whom other women would instinctively recognize as evil. But Jean was a mixture of the opposites of these things, and she was also Jean.
He loved to stand and watch her. She reminded him of a picture he had once seen—one of a series of four depicting the seasons; and Jean resembled the one called "Autumn," a figure of a woman in a purple Grecian robe walking through a wood of falling leaves, a mature woman, with kindliness and wisdom in her eyes, and a certain proud grace to her. Jean often looked like that.
She thought, too, in a simple way. Her opinions were definite as rocks.
"It's no' right, Aleck!" She would raise her brown eyes calmly and fearlessly to him, discussing a manner of trading or a phase of municipal politics.
She had only one fault to find with him. She would pat his head and say:
"There 's only one thing about you, Aleck, you 're not exactly human. There 's a wee thing missing somewhere, red fellow. They workers of yours, they 're no more in your eye than the machinery they handle. I 'd like to have you a wee bit softer, Aleck. I would so."
"I 'm soft enough toward you," he would object.