Preferring her delicate coloring to the blushes of the west, he feasted on her profile, delicately outlined against a golden cloud, until she turned. Then he brought her back to the point. "Well—have you forgotten?"
"What?" She knew too well, but the question killed a moment.
"The answer you promised me?"
She would dearly have loved to give it, to cry aloud: "I love! I love! I love—him, not you!" Ay, she would have flaunted it in all the proud cruelty of love—had she dared. Instead, she answered: "You forget! I am a married woman."
"No, I don't," he urged. "That is easily settled. Three months' residence across the line, in Dakota, and you are free of him."
"But not of myself."
"What do you mean?"
Alarmed by the sudden suffusion of venous blood on his face and neck, the reddish glow of his eye, she forged hasty excuses. "You see, I never thought of it—in that way. I must have time to get used to the idea. Won't you give me a week?" Her winning smile conquered. He had stepped his ponies alongside, and, snatching her hand, he covered it with kisses.
"By God, Helen, you must say yes! I'm mad—mad with love of you. If you refuse—"
"Hush!" She snatched away her hand as a man came in sight from behind a bluff, coming up-stream. "It is Mr. Bender!" she exclaimed—so thankfully. Then, mindful of her part, she added: "What a nuisance! I wonder if he—saw you?"