"Your face, though—that's the fine thing—" He was scanning it with narrowed eyes. But a protesting movement of hers restored him to his normal embarrassment. He writhed in uncomfortable apology before her. "I'd 'most forgot you were really here," he explained. "I've seen you that way so often when you weren't here. There now—I see that sadness; it's in the upper lip. It showed even when you laughed then."
"Really, this must stop," she broke in. "People don't talk this way."
"Don't they? Why don't they? I'm sorry—but all that interested me." The wave of his hand indicated the fluent grace of the lady impartially from head to foot.
"Of course," he added, "I knew there must be people like you, out there, but I never dreamed I'd have one of them close enough to look at—let alone get friendly with. I hope you won't hold it against me."
CHAPTER IV
A PORTRAIT
THOUGH she had made him tingle with an impulse to flee from her, he was at the edge of the east bench early the next afternoon. He might see her from a distance. If she came close upon him—well, it was worth risking; he had a good horse. Her eyes were the best of her he thought, big gray things under black brows, with a dark ring, well defined, about the iris. He had seen no such eyes before. And how they lighted her face when she spoke. Her face needed lighting, he thought. It was pale under the dark hair—her hair stopped short of being black, and was lusterless—with only a bit of scared pink in her cheeks, after that ride of the day before. He thought of her hands, too. They were the right hands for her, long, slender, and strong, he did not doubt, under a tricky look of being delicate. It was not possible that they could ever talk together again so easily. He could not make that seem true, but he could look at her. He had hoped she would promise to come again, but they had parted abruptly the afternoon before. Riding back with her, as they breasted the last slope leading to the ranch, he had rejoiced boldly at the chance that had led her up the lake trail that morning. Then Beulah Pierce had hailed them from his station at the bars, hailed them in a voice built to admirable carrying power by many cattle drives. His speech began, "Didn't I tell you where that upper trail would——"
Whereupon the lady turned to dismiss her escort rather curtly.
"Thank you for riding back with me. I shall not trouble you any further." And he, staring suddenly at her with the wild deer's eyes again, had fled over the back trail.
He thought if there had been more time she might have said, "I will come again soon—perhaps to-morrow." He liked to think she might have said that, but he could not give it much reality.