“Pierre,” she told him when they were in the shining, clean log house, “is off in the hills after his elk, but I can make you up a bed in the settin’-room an’ serve you a supper an’ welcome.”
“Oh, thanks,” he rather doubtfully accepted.
Evidently he did not know the ways and proprieties of this new “parish” of his. But Joan seemed to take the situation with an enormous calm impersonality. He modeled his manner upon hers. They sat at the table together, Joan silent, save when he forced her to speak, and entirely untroubled by her silence, Frank Holliwell eating heartily, helping her serve, and talking a great deal. He asked her a great many questions, which she answered with direct simplicity. By the end of dish-washing, he had her history and more of her opinions, probably, than any other creature she had met.
“What do you do when Landis is away?”
She told him.
“But, in the evenings, I mean, after work. Have you books?”
“No,” said Joan; “it’s right hard labor, readin’. Pa learned me my letters an’ I can spell out bits from papers an’ advertisements an’ what not, but I ain’t never read a book straight out. I dunno,” she added presently, “but as I’d like to. Pierre can read,” she told him proudly.
“I’m sure you’d like to.” He considered her through the smoke of his pipe. He was sitting by the hearth now, and she, just through with clearing up, stood by the corner of the mantel shelf, arranging the logs. The firelight danced over her face, so beautiful, so unlighted from within.
“How old are you, Joan Landis?” he asked suddenly, using her name without title for the first time.
“Eighteen.”