"It is true, you ver' moch strong," she murmured. "Lak a bear. But a bear is ogly."
"You didn't think I was pretty to-day, did you,", he said with a grin, "with a week's growth on my chin?"
She softly stroked his cheek. "Wah!" she said, laughing. "Lak porcupine! Red man not have strong beard lak that. They say you scrape it off with a knife every day."
"When I have the knife," said Ambrose.
"Why you do that?" she asked. "I lak see it grow down long lak my hair. That would be wonderful!"
Ambrose trembled with internal laughter.
"I lak everything of you," she murmured.
He was much troubled between his gratitude and his inability to reciprocate the naïve passion she had conceived for him. It is pleasant to be loved and flattered and exalted, but it entails obligations.
"I never can thank you properly for what you've done," he said clumsily.
"I do anything for you," she said quickly. "So soon my eyes see you to the dance I know that. Always before that I am think about white men. I not see no white men before, only the little parson, and the old men at the fort. They not lak you? My father is the same as me. He lak white men. We talk moch about white men. My fat'er say to me never forget the Angleys talk. Do I spik Angleys good, Angleysman?"