“I should think, if she were very healthy,” said Miss Newell, hesitating between mischief and shyness, “and not too imaginative, and of a cheerful disposition; and if he, the hunter, were above the average,—supposing that she cared for him in the beginning,—I should think the smile might last a year or two.”
“Heavens, what a cynic you are! I feel like a mere daub of sentiment beside you. There have been moments, do you know, even in this benighted mining camp, when I have believed in that hunter and his smile!”
He got up suddenly, and stood against the rock, facing her. Although he kept his cool, bantering tone, his breathing had quickened, and his eyes looked darker.
“You may consider me a representative man, if you please: I speak for hundreds of us scattered about in mining camps and on cattle ranches, in lighthouses and frontier farms and military posts, and all the Godforsaken holes you can conceive of, where men are trying to earn a living, or lose one,—we are all going to the dogs for the want of that smile! What is to become of us if the women whose smiles we care for cannot support life in the places where we have to live? Come, Miss Frances, can't you make that smile last at least two years?” He gathered a handful of dry leaves from a broken branch above his head and crushed them in his long hands, sifting the yellow dust upon the water below.
“The places you speak of are very different,” the girl answered, with a shade of uneasiness in her manner. “A mining camp is anything but a solitude, and a military post may be very gay.”
“Oh, the principle is the same. It is the absolute giving up of everything. You know most women require a background of family and friends and congenial surroundings; the question is whether any woman can do without them.”
The young girl moved in a constrained way, and flushed as she said, “It must always be an experiment, I suppose, and its success would depend, as I said before, on the woman and on the man.”
“An 'experiment' is good!” said Arnold, rather savagely. “I see you won't say anything you can't swear to.”
“I really do not see that I am called upon to say anything on the subject at all!” said the girl, rising and looking at him across the brook with indignant eyes and a hot glow on her cheek.
He did not appear to notice her annoyance.