She smiled at him without speaking, and handed over her bag. Stonor closed the gate softly, and they made their way down the bank, and got in the boat.
It was a good, stiff pull back against the current. They spoke little. Clare studied his grim face with some concern.
“Regrets?” she asked.
He rested on his oars for a moment and his face softened. He smiled at her frankly—and ruefully. “No regrets,” he said, “but a certain amount of anxiety.”
His glance conveyed a good deal more than that—in spite of him. “I love you with all my heart. Of course I clearly understand that you have nothing for me. I am prepared to see this thing through, no matter what the end means to me.—But be merciful!” All this was in his look. Whether she got it or not, no man could have told. She looked away and dabbled her hand in the water.
Mary Moosa was a self-respecting squaw who lived in a house with tables and chairs and went to church and washed her children with soap. In her plain black cotton dress, the skirt cut very full to allow her to ride astride, her new moccasins and her black straw hat she made a figure of matronly tidiness if not of beauty. She was cooking when they arrived. Her inward astonishment, at beholding Stonor returning with the white girl who had created such a sensation at the post, can be guessed; but, true to her traditions, she betrayed nothing of it to the whites. After a single glance in their direction her gaze returned to the frying-pan.
It was Stonor who was put out of countenance, “Miss Starling is going with us,” he said, with a heavy scowl.
Mary made no comment on the situation, but continued gravely frying the flap-jacks to a delicate golden shade. Her son, aged about fourteen, who had less command over his countenance, stood in the background staring, with open eyes and mouth. It was a trying moment for Stonor and Clare. They discussed the prospects of a good day for the journey in rather strained voices.
However, it proved that Mary’s silence had neither an unfriendly nor a censorious intention. She merely required time to get her breath, so to speak. She transferred the flap-jacks from the pan to a plate, and, putting them in the ashes to keep hot, arose and came to Clare with extended hand.
“How,” she said, as she had been taught was manners to all.