Just for a moment the impulse was strong in him to fling all responsibility to the winds. He wanted to crush her in his great arms and tell her all those things which life ordains that woman shall yearn to hear. But the impulse was resisted. He knew it had to be.
"But you don't ever need to be alone again," he said simply. "You're forgetting. There's that darn old moose. That's a sign. You've only to send word, or come right along up. You see, the folks who're alone are the folks who've got no one to go to when things get awry. I guess you can't ever feel just alone now—whatever happens."
Keeko's eyes were very soft, very tender as she looked up into Marcel's face.
"It's good to hear that. It's good to feel that," she said gently. "And I do feel it," she added with a deep sigh. "I've a whole heap to thank God for, and, if it's not wrong to put it that way, still more to thank you for. I just don't know how to say it all. But just as long as I live I——"
"Cut it right out, Keeko. Cut it right out."
Marcel spoke hastily. He spoke almost roughly. He was in no frame of mind to listen complacently to any words of thanks from this girl. Thanks? If thanks were due it was from him. She had given him her trust and confidence. She had given him moments in his life such as he had never dreamed could fall to the lot of any man. In the firelight he flushed deeply at the thought, and again impulse stirred and nearly overwhelmed him.
"I just can't stand thanks from you, Keeko," he said impulsively. "Thanks only need to come from folks whom you help feeling you don't fancy doing it. You've handed me the sort of happiness that makes a feller feel like getting onto his hands and knees and thanking God for. Say, I can't talk to you same as I fancy to, and I guess it's not my fault. You don't know who I am, or a thing about me. And you can't hand me much more about yourself. Still, I sort of feel the time'll come when we can open out things. What I want to say is, you've handed me a trust that isn't hardly natural. You've chased this country with a feller who might be any old thing from a 'hold-up' to a 'gun-artist,' and they're around in plenty north of 60°. And it's the big white heart inside you made you act that way, and I sort of feel that big white heart is still my care, even after we've made good-bye at that old moose head. I wish to death I could say the things I fancy right, but I just can't, and it's no use in talking. But don't you ever dare to hand me thanks, or I'll have to get right up and break things."
Keeko's reply was a low thrilling laugh, full of a gentle gladness which she cared not if he read.
"Maybe you haven't said the things the way you fancy saying them," she said, in her gentle fashion. "But you've said them the way I'd have you say them. But you're right. There's folks in a person's life you can't thank, you haven't a right to thank, and maybe that's how we're fixed. You've jumped right into my life with your big body and generous heart, and I—well, I guess you haven't found things easier because I've butted into yours. Still, the thing's happened, and it makes me kind of glad. Some day—But there—what's the use?"
The temptation was irresistible. Marcel flung out one great hand and closed it over the hands the girl was holding out to the fire.