She gave the branch a shake and a shower of drops fell on him.
"There, that's to cool your anger. For I see you're angry though I haven't got the least idea what it's about."
He made no answer, wounded by her lack of understanding. She moved the rose spray against her face, inhaling its fragrance, and watching him through the leaves. After a moment she said with a questioning inflection:
"You were angry?"
He gave her a quick glance, met her eyes, shining between the duller luster of the leaves, and suddenly dumb before their innocent provocation, turned his head away. The sense of his disturbance trembled on the air and Susan's smile died. She dropped the branch, trailing it lightly across the water, and wondering at the confusion that had so abruptly upset her self-confident gayety. Held in inexplicable embarrassment she could think of nothing to say. It was he who broke the silence with a change of subject:
"In a few days more we'll be at the Platte. When we started that seemed as if it was half the journey, didn't it?"
"We'll get there just about a month from the time we left Independence. Before we started I thought a month out of doors this way would be like a year. But it really hasn't seemed long at all. I suppose it's because I've enjoyed it so."
This again stirred him. Was there any hope that his presence might have been the cause of some small fraction of that enjoyment? He put out a timid feeler:
"I wonder why you enjoyed it. Perhaps Leff and I amused you a little."
It was certainly a humble enough remark, but it caused a slight stiffening and withdrawal in the young girl. She instinctively felt the pleading for commendation and resented it. It was as if a slave, upon whose neck her foot rested, were to squirm round and recommend himself to her tolerance. David, trying to extort from her flattering admissions, roused a determination to keep the slave with his face in the dust.