"A little while ago I believed they were, but I can't quite think that now," he said. "Something seems to have happened in the meanwhile—and they don't appear to count."
They had as if by mutual consent turned and followed a path that led into the scented shadow of the firs, but when a great columnar trunk hid them from the house Jimmy stopped again.
"Yes," he said, "after that morning when we watched the big combers from the Sorata's cockpit, I think I should have known you were glad to see the Shasta back; but the trouble was that I dared not let myself be sure of it. There were, as you said, reasons for that. I suppose I should be strong enough to recognize and yield to them still, but—while you may blame me afterward for not doing so—I can't."
He moved a pace forward, and laid a hand on her shoulder, holding her back from him, unresisting, while he looked down at her. "Since I carried you through the creek that evening up in the bush I have thought of nothing, longed for nothing, but you. It has been one long effort to hold the folly in check; but it has suddenly grown too hard for me—I can't keep it up. Now, at least, you know."
He let his hand drop to his side, and stood still with his eyes fixed on her. Anthea looked up at him with a smile.
"Ah!" she said, "I knew it all long ago. Was it very hard, Jimmy—and are you sure it was necessary?"
The blood surged to the man's forehead, but there was trouble as well as exultation in his face, for his senses were coming back, and it seemed to him that he must somehow muster wisdom to choose for both of them.
"My dear," he said a trifle hoarsely, "I think it was. I am a struggling steamboat skipper, and you a lady of station in this Province. That was a sufficient reason, as things go."
"If you had been the director of a steamship company, and I a girl without a dollar, would that have influenced you?"
"It would have made it easier. I should have claimed you on board the Sorata. Lord"—and Jimmy made a little forceful gesture—"how I wish you were!"