Toward David she was always entirely simple and natural, except when abashed by his speech, which seemed to her most elaborate and sometimes mystifying. She would pause and gaze on him an instant when he extended to her a courtesy, as if to give it its exact value. Not that she in the least distrusted him, quite the contrary, but that she was wholly unused to hearing phrased courtesies, or enthusiasms expressed in the form of words.
She had seen something of it in the bishop's pretty complimentary pleasantries with his wife, but David's manner of handing her a chair, offering her a suggestion—with a "May I be allowed?" was foreign to her, and she accepted such remarks with a moment's hesitation and a certain aloofness hardly understood by him.
He found himself treating her with a measure of freedom from the constraint which men often place upon themselves because of the recognition of the personal element which will obtrude between them and femininity in general. He recognized the reason for this in her absolute lack of coquetry toward him, but analyze the phenomenon, as yet, he could not.
To her he was a being from another world, strange and delightful, but set as far from her as if the sea divided them. She turned toward him sweet, expectant eyes. She listened attentively, gropingly sometimes. She would understand him if she could,—would learn from him and trust him implicitly,—but her femininity never obtruded itself. Her personality seemed to be enclosed within herself and never to lean toward him with the subtile flattery men feel and like to awaken, but which they often fear to arouse when they wish to remain themselves unstirred. Her dignified poise and perfect freedom from all arts to attract his favor and attention pleased him, but while it gave him the safe and unconstrained feeling when with her, it still piqued his man's nature a little to see her so capable of showing tenderness to her own, yet so unstirred by himself.
Cassandra had never been up to his cabin when he was there, until to-day, since the morning she came to consult him about Frale, nor had that young man's name been uttered between them. David had said nothing to her of the return of the valise, not wishing to touch on the subject unless she gave the opportunity for him to ask what she knew about it. Now, since his morning's talk with her mother had envisioned an ideal, and shown a glory beyond, he was glad to have this opportunity of being alone with her and of sounding her depths.
For a long time they rode in silence, and he remembered her mother's words, "He may have told Cass, but she is that still." She carried her basket carefully before her on the pommel of her saddle. Gradually the large sunbonnet which quite hid her face slipped back, and the sun lighted the bronze tints of her hair. As he rode at her side he studied her watchfully, so simply dressed in homespun material which had faded from its original color to a sort of turquoise green. The stuff was heavy and clung closely to her figure, and she rode easily, perched on her small, old-fashioned side-saddle, swaying with lithe movement to the motion of her horse. She wore no wrap, only a soft silk kerchief knotted about her neck, the fluttering ends of which caressed her chin.
Her cheeks became rosy with the exercise, and her gray eyes, under the green pines and among the dense laurel thickets, took on a warm, luminous green tint like the hue of her dress. David at last found it difficult to keep his eyes from her,—this veritable flower of the wilderness,—and all this time no word had been spoken between them. How impersonal and far away from him she seemed! While he was filled with interest in her and eager to learn the secret springs of her life, she was riding on and on, swaying to her horse as a flower on its slender stem sways in a breeze, as undisturbed by him as if she were not a human breathing girl, subject to man's dominating power.
Was she, then, so utterly untouched by his masculine presence? he wondered. If he did not speak first, would she keep silent forever? Should he wait and see? Should he will her to speak and of herself unfold to him?
Suddenly she turned and looked clearly and pleasantly in his eyes. "We'll be on a straight road for a piece after this hill; shall we hurry a little then?"
"Certainly, if you think best. You set the pace, and I'll follow." Again silence fell.