"Yes. She's medium height—like you. She's a woman of sort of practical motherly instinct. Her eyes are blue, and clear, and fine, revealing the wholesome mind behind. She'll be slim, I guess, and her gown's just swell—real swell. She'll——"
The man broke in on an impulse which he was powerless to deny.
"She won't be tall?" he demanded, his eyes shining into hers with an intensity which made Jessie shrink before them. "She won't move with the grace of—of a Juno, straight limbed, erect? She won't have dandy gray eyes that look through and beyond all the time? She won't have lovely brown hair which sort of reflects the old sun every time it shines on it? She won't have a face so beautiful it sets a feller just crazy to look at it? Say, if it was like that," he cried, in a voice thrilling with passion, "I'd feel I didn't owe Providence the kick I've——"
How far his feelings would have carried him it was impossible to say. He had been caught off his guard, and had flung caution to the winds. But he was spared the possible consequences by an interruption which would not be denied. It was an interruption which had claimed them both at the same instant.
A sound came out of the distance on the still evening air. It came from the bend of the river where it swung away to the northwest. It was the sound of the dipping of many paddles, a sound which was of paramount importance to these people at all times.
The girl was on her feet first. Nor was Murray a second behind her. Both were gazing intently out in the growing dusk. Simultaneously an exclamation broke from them. Then the girl spoke while the man remained silent.
"Canoes," she said. "One, two, three, four—five. Five canoes. I know whose they are."
Murray was standing close beside her, the roundness of his ungainly figure aggravated by the contrast. He, too, was gazing hard at the flotilla. He, too, had counted the canoes as they came into view. He, too, had recognized them, just as he had recognized the thrill of delighted anticipation in the girl's voice as she announced her recognition of them.
He knew, no one better, all that lay behind the shining gray of the girl's eyes as she beheld the canoes approach. He needed no words to tell him. And he thanked his stars for the interruption which had saved him carrying his moment of folly further.
His eyes expressed no anticipation. Their glowing fires seemed to have become extinguished. There was no warmth in them. There was little life in their darkly brooding watchfulness. Never was a contrast so deeply marked between two watchers of the same object. The man was cold, his expression hard. It was an expression before which even his habitual smile had been forced to flee. Jessie was radiant. Excitement surged till she wanted to cry out. To call the name that was on her lips.