She was gazing up into the full, youthful face of the policeman with an intentness that robbed her eyes of any softness.
Sinclair was unsmiling, too. Sensible of the girl’s beauty, at that moment he was without any appreciation of it. He was not even looking at her. His blue eyes were on the iron-roofed store on the far side of the township, and he was thinking hard.
The policeman knew that the moment had come when life was presenting him with one of those ugly bills which it never fails to produce for settlement after the indulgence of youthful follies which have crossed the borderline of crime. And in that moment the last thing capable of making appeal to him was this woman’s charm, which, for weeks and months now, had so badly inflamed his unbridled soul.
He was a largish man and good-looking enough, until close study revealed certain physical imperfections which can betray so much. He was of the fair, florid type. He was by no means unimposing under his regulation fur cap, and in his black sheepskin fur with the yellow stripe of his breeches showing below its lower edge.
But his eyes had that queer glisten in them which so curiously denotes the sensual. His nether lip was too full, and even loose. Then he had an ugly, short laugh that betrayed no good will, and a way of gazing afar while he talked.
Just now he had much to conceal. He was concerned as he listened to the low rich tones that were somehow so different from that which he knew they could be when the mood behind them was soft and yielding. And his concern was twofold.
He was searching to discover the easiest means of meeting and countering the bill which was being presented through the lips of the beautiful half-breed, and, at the same time, wondering how best it could be used to further his official plans.
“Do we need to worry, kid?” he asked, in reply to her spoken fear of her father and the Wolf when they finally discovered the truth of the thing lying between them. “I don’t guess so. You’re not a child. You’re a woman with the right to love where you feel like it. Pideau’s your father all right. But fathers don’t count with a grown woman. As for Mister Wolf, where does he come in anyway? He’s not even a brother.”
Annette turned away. She stood with one arm spread out on the top rail of the fence gazing across at the store.
“That’s the worry of it,” she sighed, and her brows drew in a thoughtful pucker.