“Aren’t we?” she said again, but her voice sounded very small and bodiless and forlorn in the half dark room.
He swung one arm in a stiff gesture that embraced the entire valley.
“They’re all sure, too,” his voice grated hoarsely, “They’re all sure, too––just as sure as we could ever be––and there’s a whole town of them!”
She was bending silently over the table, retying the bundle, when he crossed back to her side, a lighted lantern dangling in one hand.
“I don’t know why myself,” he tried to explain. “I only know I’ve got to wait. And I don’t even know what I’m waiting for––but I know it’s got to come!”
She would not lift her head when he slipped his free arm about her shoulders and drew her against him. When he reached out to take the package from her she held it away from him, but her voice, half muffled against his checkered coat, was anything but hard.
“Let you carry them?” she murmured. “Why––I wouldn’t trust them to any other hands in the world but my own. You can’t even see them again––not until I’ve finished them, and I wear them––for you.”
With head still bowed she walked before him to the open door. But there on the threshold she stopped and flashed up at him her whimsically provocating smile.
“Tell me––why don’t you tell me, Denny,” she commanded imperiously, “that I’m prettier than all the others––even if I haven’t the pretty clothes!”