Spoof glanced at a clock which chuckled away amiably on his wall. "We can have lunch within an hour," he said. With a fork he prodded something stewing on the stove. "Yes, the rabbit is almost done. By Jove, a good fat one! Fancy how they pick so lordly a living! Will you wait, or would you rather have a bite now? I can only give you bread and marmalade at once. You must be hungry."
"No, I'm not hungry," I said, truthfully enough. The fact is, I couldn't keep my eyes off Jean. Now and again, when she didn't know I watched, her face seemed to take on something of melancholy; but mostly it was bright, responsive, vivacious. She seemed to fit so wonderfully—physically and mentally she fitted so wonderfully into Spoof's shack. She had laid her overshoes aside and as she sat the brown ribs of her homeknit stockings peeped over the top of a neatly laced boot. This was before the days of the frank revelations of our modern fashions. Her intertwined fingers shuttled slowly back and forth against each other; her lips were ruddy in the glow from the little brass lamp; her hair, parted in the middle and drawn into a wavy roll at the back of her head gave her a peculiarly girlish appearance. She was so young, so small, and withal so wise, so venturesome, so defiant. The place where my breakfast should have been contracted with a great yearning; a huge emptiness filled me.
So we waited for the rabbit to stew, and Spoof and Jean chatted on. I was more the audience than one of the players. They were away into some dispute about atmospheric colorings; something that had to do with rainbows, sun-dogs, ice prisms, light radiation. It was beyond me; so obviously beyond me that Spoof had mercy and brought Jean back to earth.
"What do you think of the scheme to form a new Province here—two new Provinces," he shot at me, "instead of our present Districts? More autonomy and more taxes as I see it."
"Yes, I suppose," I groped. The fact is I knew nothing about it.
"Would seem more natural to follow the old district boundaries, though," Spoof commented. "They say they are going to run the Provinces from south to north—as far as the sixtieth parallel. There'll be an election next year. You ought to think about that, Frank. It would be some honor to sit in the first parliament of Saskatchewan."
The idea struck me as grotesque. I said so.
"Why not?" Jean demanded, and there was fire in her voice. "Perhaps not the first parliament, but some parliament," she qualified.
"Some parliament," I said to myself. "Perhaps. If I had Jean to goad me on I might do—anything."
Spoof scraped a corner clear on the window pane, and said some lines about "Snow cold—in snow." It was something about a soldier dying in the trenches; not wounded, or fighting, but just dying in the snow. I saw Jean's wrapt attention; the glisten of her eyes; the gulp of her white throat. What power was this the man had over her? Was this all a thing of mind, or was it body, too? I had told myself that, animal for animal, Jean would prefer me. As I looked at Spoof's strong figure, well knit, well clad, I wondered.