CHAPTER V
PIERRE BECOMES ALARMED ABOUT HIS PROPERTY
The next time Holliwell came, he brought the books, and, finding Pierre at home, he sat with his host after supper and talked men’s talk of the country; of game, of ranching, a little gossip, stories of travel, humorous experiences, and Joan sat in her place, the books in her lap, looking and listening.
John Carver had used a phrase, “When you see her eyes lookin’ and lookin’ at another man—” and this phrase had stuck in Pierre’s sensitive and jealous memory. What Joan felt for Holliwell was a sort of ignorant and respectful tenderness, the excitement of an intelligent child first moved to a knowledge of its own intelligence; the gratitude of savage loneliness toward the beautiful feet of exploration. A consciousness of her clean mind, a consciousness of her young, untamed spirit, had come slowly to life in her since her talk with Holliwell. Joan was peculiarly a woman—that is, the passive and receptive being. Pierre had laid his hand on her heart and she had followed him; now this young parson had put a curious finger on her brain, it followed him. Her husband saw the admiration, the gratitude, the tender excitement in her frank eyes, and the poison seed sown by John Carver’s hand shot out roots and tiny, deadly branches.
But Joan and Holliwell were unaware. Pierre smoked rapidly, rolling cigarette after cigarette; he listened with a courteous air, he told stories in his soft, slow voice; once he went out to bring in a fresh log and, coming back on noiseless feet, saw Joan and her instructor bent over one of the books and Joan’s face was almost that of a stranger, so eager, so flushed, with sparkles in the usually still, gray eyes.
It was not till a week or two after this second visit from the clergyman that Pierre’s smouldering jealousy broke into flame. After clearing away the supper things with an absent air of eager expectation, Joan would dry her hands on her apron, and, taking down one of her books from their place in a shelf corner, she would draw her chair close to the lamp and begin to read, forgetful of Pierre. These had been the happiest hours for him; he would tell Joan about his day’s work, about his plans, about his past life; wonderful it was to him, after his loneliness, that she should be sitting there drinking in every word and loving him with her dumb, wild eyes. Now, there was no talk and no listening. Joan’s absorbed face was turned from him and bent over her book, her lips moved, she would stop and stare before her. After a long while, he would get up and go to bed, but she would stay with her books till a restless movement from him would make her aware of the lamplight shining wakefulness upon him through the chinks in the partition wall. Then she would get up reluctantly, sighing, and come to bed.
For ten evenings this went on, Pierre’s heart slowly heating itself, until, all at once, the flame leaped.
Joan had untied her apron and reached up for her book. Pierre had been waiting, hoping that of her free will she might prefer his company to the “parson feller’s”—for in his ignorance those books were jealously personified—but, without a glance in his direction, she had turned as usual to the shelf.
“You goin’ to read?” asked Pierre hoarsely. It was a painful effort to speak.