She rested her hand on his sleeve for an instant. A smile and a shake of her head accompanied the action.
"I know better than that, Lee Bryant," she rejoined. "You're not selfish yourself and will never arrive at a time when you'll believe what you said."
"But there are selfish people, many of them."
"Yes. Of course."
"And one can't change them, and they cause infinite anxiety in others——"
"Yes; that, too. Has Mr. Menocal been troubling you in some new way?"
Lee rose hastily. "I wasn't thinking of him," said he; and he went to a window and stared out at the engineers' shack across the street. Her touch on his arm, her tone, her solicitude, agitated him more than he dared let her see. Why in the name of heaven couldn't he have a Ruth who was like her? A Ruth who was a Louise, with all of her lovable qualities and splendid courage and fine nobility of heart?
He swung about to gaze at her. She yet sat half turned in her seat so that her clear profile was before his eyes. Her soft chestnut hair glinted with gleams of the fire that escaped through a crack in the door. Her features were in repose. Something in her attitude, in her face, gave her a girlish appearance, as she might have looked when sixteen—an infinite candor, an innocence and simplicity, that alone comes from a serene spirit.
Presently he discovered that she had moved her head about, that she was looking straight at him. Bryant experienced a singular emotion.
"Some serious trouble is disturbing you," she said.