“Oh, you make me say it!” she cried vexatiously. “Do you think I am beautiful?”
The question rendered him nearly speechless. He pressed her hand hard against his cheek. “Oh, Loseis!” he stammered. “I . . . I . . . you . . . I can’t tell you. I’m just a blundering fool when it comes to expressing my feelings. Why, you have made a new world for me. When I think of your face it drives me out of my senses. I can’t think of the words for it!”
She pillowed her cheek happily in the hollow inside his shoulder. “Then you must find words!” she said. “You must never stop telling me. My ears are greedy to hear it. Of all the world, I only care to be beautiful for you!”
In sight of the darkly flowing river they came to a stop. They could hear the murmuring voices of the two Beaver Indians at the water’s edge. They drew apart. For a long while they stood there not touching each other in dumb unhappiness and constraint. They were both new at this lovemaking business.
“Well,” said Conacher at last, like a schoolboy trying to carry it off flippantly, “I must make a break . . .”
“Oh!” she cried, hurt to the quick. “Is that all you care?”
He dropped his absurd pretense. “It is like death to leave you now,” he murmured, brokenly.
“Well, good-by,” she said suddenly in an unnaturally high-pitched voice. And turned as if to run forthwith.
He caught hold of her. “No! No!” he cried. “Not like this!”
She struggled in his arms. “Let me go! Let me go!” she whispered in a desperate voice. “I can’t stand these good-bys. I like a thing ended quickly. . . . Let me go!”