“I never did an hour’s useful work before I came out West,” she said.
She had produced the effect she probably desired, for in the midst of his sudden pity for her Nasmyth was troubled with a sense of shame. This girl, he realized, had been reared as gently as he had been himself, and he knew that she now toiled most of every day at what in the older country would have been considered most unwomanly tasks. Still, she had borne with it cheerfully, and had courage to spare for others whose strength was less than hers.
He sat silent for almost a minute, looking down between the great pines into the valley, and, as he did so, he vaguely felt the influence of the wilderness steal over him. The wind had fallen now, and there was a deep stillness in the climbing forest which the roar of the river emphasized. Those trees were vast of girth, and they were very cold. In spite of whirling snow, and gale, and frost, they had grown slowly to an impressive stateliness. In Nature, as he recognized, all was conflict, and it was the fine adjustment of opposing forces that made for the perfection of grace, and strength, and beauty. Then it seemed to him that his companion was like the forest––still, and strong, and stately––because she had been through the stress of conflict too. These were, however, fancies, and he turned around again to her with a sudden resolution expressed in his face and attitude.
“There’s an argument you might have used, Miss Waynefleet,” he told her. “I said I would try to do you credit, and it almost seems as if I had forgotten it. Well, if you will wait a little, I will try again.”
He rose, and, crossing over, stood close beside her, with his hand laid gently on her shoulder, looking down on her with a quiet smile. “After all,” he added, “there’s a good deal you might have said that you 64 haven’t––in fact, it’s one of your strong points that, as a rule, you content yourself with going just far enough. Well, because you wish it, I am somehow going to build that dam again.”
She looked up at him swiftly with a gleam in her eyes, and Nasmyth stooped a little, while his hand closed hard upon her shoulder.
“You saved my life, and you have tried to do almost as much in a different way since then,” he went on. “It is probably easier to bring a sick man back to health than it is to make him realize his obligations and to imbue him with the courage to face them when it’s evident that he doesn’t possess it. Still, you can’t do things of that kind without results, and I think you ought to know that I belong to you.”
There was a trace of colour in Laura Waynefleet’s face, and she quivered a little under his grasp, but she looked at him steadily, and read his mind in his eyes. The man was stirred by sudden, evanescent passion and exaggerated gratitude, while pity for her had, she fancied, also its effect on him; but that was the last thing she desired, and, with a swift movement, she shook off his hand.
“Ah!” she said; “don’t spoil things.”