As for the man, Jean Baptiste, he seemed to relax after a time, and looked away. He had seen her at last; she had been his dream girl; had come in a dream and as she stood before him she was all his wondrous vision had portrayed. Her face was flushed by the cold air, and red roses in full bloom were in her cheeks; while her beautiful hair, spread over her shoulders, and fanned by a light breeze, made her in his eyes a picture of enchantment. When he observed her again and saw that her eyes were blue and then again were brown, he was still mystified; but what was come over Jean Baptiste now was the fact, the Great fact: The fact that between him and his dream girl was a chasm so deep socially that bridging was impossible. Because she was white while he was black, according to the custom of the country and its law, she could never be anything to him....
Her back was to the rising sun, and neither had observed that it was mounting higher in the eastern skies. She suppressed the question that was on her lips to ask him, the eternal question, and in that instant he came out of his trance. He turned to her, and said:
"It was sure fortunate for me that you lost your way," and so saying his eyes went toward the place she had found him, and she understood. She could not repress a happy smile that overspread her face. He saw it and was pleased.
"It was rather providential; but I would forget it. To think that you might have frozen to death out there makes me shudder when I recall it."
"I cannot seem to understand what came over me—that I was in the act of freezing while I walked."
"It was a terrible night," she commented. "I, too, might have frozen, but for the good fortune of my horse finding your house."
"Isn't it strange," he muttered abstractedly.
"I hadn't the least idea where I was," said she, musingly.
"Such a coincidence."
"Indeed it was——, but please, shall we forget it," and she shuddered slightly.