CHAPTER XII
“When you sit so silent, Pete,” Sylvie said softly, “I sometimes wonder if you’re not staring at me.”
“When I’m making a trap,” he answered, smiling a little to himself and instinctively shifting his gaze, “I can’t very well be staring at you, can I?”
He was kneeling on the ground before the cabin door, she sitting on the low step under the shadow of the roof. Her chin rested on the backs of her hands, the limber wrists bent up a little, the sleeves slipped away from her slim, white wrists. Her face was brightly rosy, her lips very red—at once a little stern, yet very sweet.
“Traps are cruel,” she said.
“I think so myself. But we have to make a living, don’t we?”
“Aren’t you ashamed of yourself sometimes, Pete?”
“For making traps, and catching live things in them?”
“Yes. It’s a sort of deceitful cruelty, catching the little blind, wandering wild things.”