The girl gazed at her reflection in the cheap swing mirror. It was no act of vanity, it was in no sense a desire to admire the wonderful dark-haired reflection she discovered there. It was a simple expression of her mood; an involuntary impulse which had no other meaning than to supply her with an object upon which to concentrate while she thought.
Annette was breathing quickly as she stood there. She made no effort to conceal her agitation here in the privacy of her own room. Her brain was almost reeling.
She knew she was face to face with a real crisis. And she knew the magnitude of it. In whatever direction she looked, from whatever angle, the position was always the same. Motherhood was hers. Only was it a question of time before it was physically accomplished. The future—her future—the whole of everything that counts in a woman’s life was trembling in the balance.
She wanted to think. She told herself she must think with all her might, but coldly, calmly. She must leave all feeling out. She must beat down all emotion.
In practice, however, none of these things were possible to her. It was not real thought that came to her. Only a headlong tumbling of feeling and emotion which urged her blindly and without reason.
Then came the Wolf.
It was a sound in the living-room. It was the padding of moccasined feet on a boarded floor. And, in a moment, Annette found herself back in the living-room with her slim back turned to the comforting wood stove and confronting the smiling creature whose undesired presence spurred her further to hasty impulse.
The Wolf’s eyes were frigid.
“Say,” Annette greeted him, “Pideau didn’t reckon you’d be along back for days yet. What’s brought you?”
The ungraciousness was more than usually accentuated. Annette had no thought for their years of childhood together. Only she remembered her bitter antagonism and her present need. Her lips closed tightly over her words, giving them the sharpness to which the Wolf was accustomed.