CHAPTER THIRTY
THE sun at meridian that day burned away the mists, for it was May and the high sun was able to prevail.
The sluiceway of Skulltree dam was open and in the caldron of the gorge a yeasty flood boiled and the sunlight painted rainbows in the drifting spume. Rolling cumbrously, end over end, at the foot of the sluice, lifting glistening, dripping flanks, sinking and darting through the white smother of the waters, the logs of the Flagg drive had begun their flight to the holdbooms of Adonia.
Lida and the taciturn squire whom she had drafted had climbed to the cliffs above the gorge in order to behold the first fruits of the compact which had been concluded with Craig and the Comas. Latisan went with her to the cliff because she had asked him to show her the way. His manner with her was not exactly shyness; she had been studying him, trying anxiously to penetrate his thoughts. He was reserved, but awkwardly so; it was more like embarrassment; it was a mingling of deference and despair in the face of a barrier.
It was warm up there where the sun beat against the granite, and she pulled off the jacket which had been one of her credentials in the north country. “I took the liberty of wearing it—and the cap. I’ll not need them any more.”
She took the cap from her head. The breeze which had followed the calm of the mist fluttered a loose lock of her hair across her forehead and the sun lighted a glint within the tress. He gazed and blinked.
“I heard you had them—I heard it in Mern’s office in New York,” he said, with poor tact.
She offered them and he took the garments, clutching the cap and holding the jacket across his arm.
“I don’t blame you for looking at me as you do,” she went on, demurely and deprecatingly feminine at that moment. She smoothed her blouse with both hands and glanced down at her stained and ragged skirt. “It’s my only warm dress and I’ve lived and slept in it—and I haven’t minded a bit when the coffee slopped. I was trying to do my best.”
He rocked his head voicelessly, helplessly—striving to fit speech to the thoughts that surged in him.