“Die!” said she; and again, “Die! He’ll never die!”
She leaned toward him suddenly, bringing her face within a few inches of his. Her hot breath struck him on the cheek; it moved the clustered hair at his temple and played warm in the doorway of his ear.
“He’ll never die,” she repeated in low, quick voice, which fell to a whisper in the end, “unless somebody he’s tramped on and ground down and cursed and driven puts him out of the way!”
Joe stood looking at her with big eyes, dead to that feminine shock which would have tingled a mature man to the marrow, insensible to the strong effort she was making to wake him and draw him to her. He drew back from her, a little frightened, a good deal ashamed, troubled, and mystified.
“Why, you don’t suppose anybody would do that?” said he.
Ollie turned from him, the fire sinking down in her face.
“Oh, no; I don’t suppose so,” she said, a little distant and cold in her manner.
She began gathering up the dishes.
Joe stood there for a little while, looking at her hands as 64 they flew from plate to plate like white butterflies, as if something had stirred in him that he did not understand. Presently he went his way to take up his work, no more words passing between them.
Ollie, from under her half raised lids, watched him go, tiptoeing swiftly after him to the door as he went down the path toward the well. Her breath was quick upon her lips; her breast was agitated. If that slow hunk could be warmed with a man’s passions and desires; if she could wake him; if she could fling fire into his heart! He was only a boy, the man in him just showing its strong face behind that mask of wild, long hair. It lay there waiting to move him in ways yet strange to his experience. If she might send her whisper to that still slumbering force and charge it into life a day before its time!