"Well, the doctor's took sort of cold, got a shiver on him like the ague, and he thought a nip o' whisky'd warm him up."
She jumped to her feet.
"There!" flinging out the word with the rage of a disregarded prophet, "a chill! I knew it!"
In a moment all the self-engrossment of her bashfulness was gone. Her mind had turned on another subject with such speed and completeness that David's kiss and her anger might have taken place in another world in a previous age. Her faculties leaped to the sudden call like a liberated spring, and her orders burst on Daddy John:
"In the back of the wagon, under the corn meal. It was moved when we crossed the Big Blue. Take out the extra blankets and the medicine chest. That's in the front corner, near my clothes, under the seat. A chill—out here in the wilderness!"
David turned to soothe her:
"Don't be worried. A chill's natural enough after such a wetting."
She shot a quick, hard glance at him, and he felt ignominiously repulsed. In its preoccupation her face had no recognition of him, not only as a lover but as a human being. Her eyes, under low-drawn brows, stared for a second into his with the unseeing intentness of inward thought. Her struggles to avoid his kiss were not half so chilling. Further solacing words died on his lips.
"It's the worst possible thing that could happen to him. Everybody knows that"—then she looked after Daddy John. "Get the whisky at once," she called. "I'll find the medicines."
"Can't I help?" the young man implored.