His ardent speeches didn't seem to waken sufficient response in her own breast. She lacked the ecstasy, the wonder that she had known when, as a girl, she had first become engaged to Harold. They embarrassed her rather than thrilled her; they didn't seem quite real. Perhaps she had simply grown older. That was it: some of her girlish romance had died a natural death. She would give his man her love, would take his in return, and they would have the usual, normal happiness of marriage. All would come out well, once they got away from the silence and the snows.
Perhaps his large and extravagant speeches were merely out of place in the stark reality of the wilderness; they could thrill her as ever when she returned to her native city. Likely he could dance, after a little practice, as well as ever; fill his niche in society and give her all the happiness that woman has a right to expect upon this imperfect earth. There was certainly nothing to be distressed over now. They had been brought together as if by a miracle; any haunting doubt and fear, too subtle and intangible to put into words or even concrete thought, would quickly pass away.
She did not, however, go frequently into his arms. Someway, an embarrassment, a sense of inappropriateness and unrest always assailed her when he tried to claim the caresses that he felt were his due. And at first she could not find a plausible explanation for her reserve. Perhaps these tendernesses were also out of place in the grim reality of the North; more likely, she decided, it was a subtle sense, the guardian angel of her own integrity, warning her that too intimate relations with that man must be avoided, isolated and exiled as they were. "Not now, Harold," she would tell him. "Not until we're established again—at home."
Finally his habits and his actions did not quite meet with her approval. The first of these was only a little thing,—a failure to keep shaved. Shaving in these surroundings, without a mirror, with a battered old razor that had lain long in the cabin and had to be sharpened on a whetstone, where every drop of hot water used had to be laboriously heated on the stove, was an annoying chore at best: besides, there was no one to see him except Virginia and the guide. The stubble matted and grew on his lips and jowls. Bill, in contrast, shaved with greatest care every evening. A more important point was that his avoidance of his proper share of Bill's daily toil. He neither hewed wood nor drew water, nor made any apologies for the omission. Rather he gave the idea that Bill's services were due him by rights.
There was a little explosion, one afternoon, when he ventured to advise her in regard to her relations with Bill. The forester himself was cutting wood outside the cabin: they heard the mighty ring of his ax against the tough spruce. Virginia was at work preparing their simple evening meal; Harold was stretched on her own cot, the curtain drawn back, his arms under his head, his unshaven face curiously dark and unprepossessing.
"You must begin to keep on your own ground—with Bill, Virginia," he began in the silence.
Virginia turned to him, a wave of hot resentment flowing clear to her finger tips. If he had seen her flushed, intent face he would have backed ground quickly. Unfortunately he was gazing quietly out the window.
"What do you mean?" she asked.
Wholly aware of her own displeasure, wondering at it and anxious to hide it, she was able to control her voice. Its tone gave no key to her thoughts. Harold answered her, still unwarned:
"I mean—keep him at his distance. He's a different sort from you and I. I don't mean he isn't all right, as far as his kind goes—but he hasn't had the advantages." Harold spoke tolerantly, patronizingly. "Those fellows are apt to take advantage of any familiarity. They're all right if you keep 'em in their place—but they're mighty likely to break lose from it any minute. I'm sorry you ever let him call you Virginia."