He remained silent now, lost in thoughts he dared not impart to Nan, and the girl herself had nothing to say. She, too, was thinking. But there was no impatience in her thoughts.
She was thinking of a moment which had occurred down at the pastures. A moment just before her return home to supper. To her it had been a moment of compensation for everything which she had ever suffered, a moment when the whole aspect of her life had been suddenly changed to a radiant vision of happiness.
She had been standing beside Jeff watching the work of the boys within the pastures. Their talk had all been of the business of the day. There had been no other sign between them. The old comradeship alone seemed to prevail. Then they had turned away, with their talk silenced. They had moved toward their horses which were standing in the shadow of a small bluff.
Just as they came up Jeff had paused, and turned, and looked down at her from his superior height. She would never forget that look. It was the look she had seen in his eyes when he first gazed on the beauty of the woman he had married. Her heart was set thumping in her bosom as she thought of it now. A deep flush surged to her cheeks, and she kept her head studiously bent over her plate.
Then had followed a great impulsive abandoning of his usual reserve. It had been so unusual in him, but to Nan so natural. It seemed as though of a sudden some great barrier between them had been thrust aside by emotions beyond the man's control. He had flung out his hands toward her, and, before she knew what was happening, she felt their passionate pressure under the buckskin gauntlets she was wearing. Then had come words, rapid, even disjointed; again to her so natural, yet strange, awkward on the lips of this man.
"Say, little Nan," he cried, "we've won out. Look at 'em. The pastures. They're full. Fuller than we ever guessed they'd be after last year. Things are running same as we've dreamed. The Obar's going up—up. And—it's all too late."
On the warm impulse of the moment she had answered him without a second thought.
"Why—why is it too late?"
Her hands were still held in his passionate grasp. He laughed a bitter, mirthless laugh.
"Why, because—because I've wakened out of a passionate nightmare to realize all I've—lost."