"Come, and I will get you told!"
He followed meekly. When they reached the parlor she was confronted with another proposition. Where would they sit? She glanced from the chairs to the davenport; but he settled it forthwith by settling upon the davenport. She hesitated, but before she had reached a decision, she found herself pulled down by his side—and dreadfully close. Well, she decided then, that this was better, after all, because, if she was close to him he could hear her better. She would not have to talk so loud. She did not like loud talking. It was too "niggerish," and she did not like that. But behold! He, as soon as she was seated, encircled her waist with his arm. Dreadful! Then, before she could tell him what she had made up all the night before to say to him, she felt his lips upon hers—and, my! they were so warm, and tender and soft. She was confused. Ethel and her father had said that the country where Jean lived was wild; that all the people in it were hard and coarse and rough—but Jean's kisses were warm, and soft and tender. She almost forgot what she had intended telling him. And just then he caught her to him, and that felt so—well, she did not know—could not say how it felt; but she was forgetting all she had planned to tell him. She heard his voice presently, and for a moment she caught sight of his eyes. They were real close to hers, and, oh, such eyes! She had not known he possessed such striking ones. How they moved her! She was as if hypnotized, she could not seem to break the spell, and in the meantime she was forgetting more of what she had made up her mind to say. He spoke then, and such a wonderful voice he seemed to have! How musical, how soft, how tender—but withal, how strong, how firm, how resolute and determined it was. She was held in a thraldom of strange delight.
"What has been the matter with my little girl?" And thereupon, as if they were not close enough, he gathered her into his arms. Oh, what a thrill it gave her! She had forgotten now, all she had had in mind to say and it would take an hour or so, perhaps a day, to think and remember it all over again.... "Hasn't she wanted to see me? Such beautiful days are these! Lovely, grand, glorious!" She looked out through the window. It was a beautiful day, indeed! And she had not observed it before.
"And hear the birds singing in the trees," she heard. And thereupon she listened a moment and heard the birds singing. She started. Now she had felt she was thoughtful. She really loved to listen to the twitter of birds—and it was springtime. It was life, and sunshine and happiness. She had not heard the birds before that morning, therefore it must have been because she had let anger rule instead of sunshine. And as if he had read her thoughts, she heard his voice again:
"And because you were angry—gave in to evil angriness and pouted instead of being cheerful, happy and gay, you have failed to observe how beautiful the sun shone, and that the birds were singing in the trees."
She felt—was sensitive of a feeling of genuine guilt.
"And away out west, where the sunshine kisses the earth, and the wheat, the corn, the flax, and the oats grow green in great fields, everybody there is about his duty; for, when the winter has been long, cold and dreary, the settlers must stay indoors lest they freeze. So with such days as these after the long, cold and dreary winters, everybody must be up and doing. For if the crops are to mature in the autumn time, they must be placed in the earth through seed in the springtime. But there is, unfortunately, one settler, called St. Jean Baptiste, by those who know him out there, who is not in his fields; his crops are not being sown; his fields—wide, wide fields, which represent many thousands of dollars, and long years of hard, hard work, are lying idle, growing to wild weeds!"
"But, Jean," she cried of a sudden. "It is not so?"
"Unfortunately it is so, my love!"
"Then—Jean—you must go—hurry, and sow your crops, also!" she echoed.