"I shall enjoy it, I am sure," she answered. "It is simply a woman's natural desire for home which leads me to ask again."
His eyes clouded. Claire somehow found herself fancying a tragic mystery in the life of this man, and then rebuked herself for romancing. Certainly, such fancies were not her habit, and she wondered why they were occurring to her.
The cabin stood on the very edge of the forest through which Lawrence had carried Claire the last morning of their long march. Protected by its pines, the little house fronted on a small lake, a place where the river which they had followed widened to a half-mile, and stayed thus with scarcely any current save directly through the center. All around the lake the forest stretched its massed green, and here Philip trapped. The lake, in its turn, provided him with fish.
The week after their arrival snow had heaped itself into the ravine and piled up high around the cabin. Ice was beginning to form on the edge of the lake, and their host was preparing for his winter's work. They were too weak to go with him, and he left them in possession of the cabin.
At first there had been an unaccountable awkwardness between Lawrence and Claire, and it had left a reserve which was difficult to overcome. Lawrence had explained their situation to Philip; the Spaniard had been apologetically gracious, but there was something in Claire's nature that made her wish that Lawrence had never been thought of as her husband. Dressed in Philip's clothes, and in the presence of a roof and fire, she felt a desire to be free from the memory of the days when she had clung about Lawrence's neck, and, above all, she felt that she was not able to meet him with understanding. His blindness in these surroundings seemed to set a sudden and impassable barrier between them, and made her ill at ease when she was alone with him.
Lawrence was irritated that she should so immediately react into what he called the old conventional habit toward blind people, and keep it standing like a stupid but solid wall between all their talk. Now that she was no longer dependent on him, she appeared to him more attractive. He thought of her husband, and wondered if Claire's attitude toward himself was tempered with the thought of the man at home. "Surely," he told himself, "she can't be allowing that to come between us, for it is so obviously quite unnecessary." Then he began to wonder how much of her life was centered about her husband. What sort of man was he, and did she love him devotedly? As he thought, there crept into his feeling a sense of irritation against the unknown man who was obstructing his friendship with the woman he had carried half through the Andes Mountains.
Then the longing for his work came over him, and there were times when he felt he must do something. He spoke needlessly sharp words to Claire. Though she concealed her anger, there grew between them a continuous straining born out of mutual misunderstanding and a great submerged tangle of emotions.
One morning when Ortez in snow-shoes and fur had gone for the day to look after his traps, Claire washed up the tin dishes they used, and sat down before the fire opposite Lawrence. His head was in his hands and his face was somber.
"You look sad this morning," she said casually.
"Do I?" he answered. "I'm not—especially. I was just planning a piece of work, dreaming it out in outline."