Jean wanted me to keep her guessing. That was the easy, slangy way of putting it. Poetic license, she had called it. What she meant was that I must always have something in reserve; some mysterious corner of myself into which she had not explored. Something to keep up the sense of mystery, the spirit of adventure, in which romance is born, without which romance must die. No doubt she was right. After all, why should she marry me? What was I more than a biped beast of burden, an animal designed to eat, sleep, labor, and reproduce itself? . . . Spoof was something more than that. Was I wise to interrupt them at all? Why not leave them alone?
It was while I wrestled with the thought of a great renunciation that the light broke about me. I was sure that animal for animal—ox for ox—Jean preferred me to Spoof. It was in those qualities that were not animal that she preferred him. It was for me, therefore, by all means, to delay her decision, and then to set about deliberately to develop the qualities in which I was at a disadvantage. I must read. These idle winter months gave me the very opportunity to read, and I cursed myself that so many weeks had slipped by unimproved. What to read? I had my old school books and a bible—little else. Still, if one knew his bible—if I were to read up some book in it, develop a simple philosophy out of it, enveigle Jean into an argument, and best her, that would be keeping her guessing, wouldn't it? . . . . . . . I could borrow books from Spoof. It was a strange sidelight on my feelings toward Spoof that even at this moment and for this purpose there seemed nothing unnatural in the thought that I should borrow books from him. Other neighbours might have books; one never can tell. Most people remain unread, not from lack of books, but from lack of application. There was the Reverend Locke. I would make an excuse to town, and would borrow books from him. I would even spend a few of my hard earned dollars on magazines, or on membership in a mail order library. Of all this Jean was to know nothing. I would keep her guessing.
I trudged on in a mood akin to cheerfulness. I had made my decision. I had stepped out of an old world into a new one. Something which must have lain dormant all these years awoke and thrilled me with the possibilities of what I might become. Life for me was no longer a thing of the body, which is death, but a thing of the mind and spirit, which are eternal. And yet . . . In imagination I allowed myself to feel Jean's hair brushing my cheek.
Presently something waved to me out of the mist. I stopped, with eyes intent. Undoubtedly something was waving to me out of the mist. "Jean! Jean!" I called, but there was no answer. I moved toward it eagerly, and suddenly the mystery was made clear. It was a great sunflower, clothed in hoary frost, nodding in the wind. I smiled to myself at its almost spectral appearance; then glancing ahead I saw another and another and another; a whole row of them. This was Spoof's! These were the sunflowers which he had planted in accordance with Jake's grotesque advice. Spoof's shack must be nearby. Surely, there to the left, was duller darkness through the snow.
I hurried toward it. The angular outline of Spoof's shack emerged gradually out of the mist, like a sunken boat rising slowly to the surface of the water. Half of it was concealed at best by the great drifts that bordered it. I found my way to the shack, around the corner, to the door. Should I knock? Prairie manners, particularly among bachelor neighbours, are free and easy. It would be no great breach of etiquette for me casually to enter Spoof's house without knocking. I believed I had done that before. And there would be a purpose in it, now of all times . . . I knocked.
There was no answer. That was subject to different explanations. A knock on a bachelor's door, miles from a neighbour, in midwinter, is a thing so unexpected that sometimes the ear does not register it; it merely cocks itself to make sure if the sound should be repeated.
I knocked again. In a moment the door opened, and I saw Spoof, in a flannel shirt and smoking jacket, corduroy trousers, moccasins—I think I took in every detail of his attire. His tie was drawn neatly up to the throat; his hair was well brushed; he had not shaved. His moustache was heavier, his face paler, thinner——
"Why, Frank!" he exclaimed. I seemed to hear both welcome and embarrassment in his voice. "Come in, old man! This is quite a day at section Two."
On account of the dull weather and the frosted windows Spoof had a lamp burning; it was a brass lamp, with a twisted, ornamental bowl and a cloth shade of some old gold color. It stood on a shelf which he had built in a corner of his only room; its subdued but cheerful light touched the objects in the little shack with a glint of color which was in sharp contrast to the drab day outside. Spoof's couch had been made up; his steamer rug lay tucked about it. The walls were a maze of firearms, prints, curios. There was the warmth of a fire and the odor of something cooking.
In the corner opposite to the lamp, on the floor, on a mat, sat Jean. Her knees were propped up in front of her and her long, supple fingers were linked about them. It was as she had sat that day—what, only yesterday?—with me under the great drift on the bank of the gully. A tapestry affair of some kind, hung on the wall, sheltered her from direct contact with the cold boards, and a cushion with a yellow dragon further protected her. She looked up at me as I entered and her face was a riddle too enigmatic to analyse. Annoyance, defiance, pleasure, humor, indifference, were strangely and inextricably interwoven.