"Why, Pearl"—a virile note of power as if some long-dreamed-of mastery were his at last swelled like a diapason through his voice—"we're in for a thaw, a big thaw, but it will take time to melt down that mountain out there in the crevasse; and you and I are here—alone—for a fortnight, at least a fortnight." He emphasized the words, lingering over them as if they afforded him delight.
"A fortnight! Here! Alone with you!" she cried. "Never, never. There must be a way—" she murmured confusedly and ran to the window to hide her agitation and embarrassment, pulling the curtain hastily aside and looking out unseeingly over the hills. She was trembling from head to foot.
The wind had risen and was wailing and shrieking over the bare hill and the air was dim with flying snow; but the spring that hours before had kissed her cheek and touched her lips like a song rose now in Pearl's heart. She pressed her tightly clasped hands against her breast and closed her eyes. A new world! And she and Harry were in it together—and alone.
CHAPTER XIV
The dawns rose, the suns set, after the avalanche as before, and Pearl and Seagreave, alone in the cabin, isolated from the world of human beings, took up their lives together, together and yet apart, in the great, encompassing silence of this white and winter-locked world.
Winter-locked, yes, but all the mighty, unseen forces of Nature were set toward spring. Nothing could stop or retard them now. Under sullen, lowering skies; beneath the blasts which swept down from the peaks; in spite of flying snow; unseen, unsuspected, in the darkness and stillness and warmth of the earth, the transformation was going on. The tender, young banners of green were almost ready for the decking of the trees, and almost completed was the weaving of pink and blue and lavender carpets of wild flowers for the hillsides.
And the spring that had arisen glorious in Pearl's heart when she had realized that she and Harry were prisoners of the avalanche was still resurgent. For the first day or two of their isolation she lived, breathed, moved in the splendor of her heart's dream. It encompassed her with the warmth and radiance of a flood of sunshine.
In spite of her protests and appeals, Seagreave would not permit her to help much with the household tasks, but busied himself almost constantly with them, maintaining with a sort of methodical pleasure the inspired order of his cabin. It is possible that he gave to each task a more exhaustive and undeviating attention than even he considered necessary, and this to cover the sense of embarrassment he felt in adapting himself not only to this pervasive, feminine presence, but to the exigencies of an unwonted companionship hedged about with restrictions.
He often felt as if he were entertaining a bird of brilliant tropical plumage in his cabin, as if it had flown thither from glowing southern lands and brought with it sensuous memories of color and fragrance, and wafts of sandalwood.
Sometimes he and Pearl walked about on the barren hillside, constantly washed more bare of snow by the daily rains which had begun to fall, and sometimes he read aloud to her a little, but in spite of Pearl's intelligence she had never cared much for books. She craved no record of another's emotions and struggles and passions. No life at second hand for her. She was absorbed in the living.