"To be sure of yourself? How sure of yourself?"
She dropped into a moment's silence, as though studying her words before attempting an answer. "You won't misunderstand, I think, Frank," she said at length, "if I tell you that I have been somewhat like a traveller on the prairie who comes upon two roads, and is not quite sure which he should take. Let us say a storm is sweeping down from the North, and his very life depends on the right decision. But the longer he stands there, looking at them, the harder it is to make the choice. It's a comfort to choose, and be on one's way."
"But suppose he chooses the wrong way?" I blundered out, only half following her meaning.
"Oh, Frank!" she cried seizing my shoulders in her strong, supple hands. "It mustn't, mustn't, mustn't be the wrong way! I won't have it the wrong way—I won't think of that as possible! See, here we are. And we have known, always, since we were little children, that we were for each other, haven't we, Frank? It has always been settled, in Heaven, don't you think, and we have just confirmed it? Oh, I know it has—I know it has!"
"I have never doubted it," I said. And even as I uttered the words the first little poisoned arrow of doubt in some way dodged through my armor and stung me in the heart. Perhaps it was the reaction to Jean's vehemence; perhaps it was that I saw her striving over-hard to convince herself. And from being over-sure I now craved to be assured.
"You are quite sure?" I ventured, after another silence in which I felt that subtle poison slowly chilling through my veins. "You are quite sure you should not have taken the road to section Two?"
"Oh, Frank!" For a moment she buried her face in my shoulder, then she lifted her head proudly, like one who goes forth resolutely to try his spirit in some great issue. "Yes, I'm sure! Spoof is to me only a neighbour, an acquaintance, always. I am quite sure."
"And there was no third trail, no little-beaten third path, that might have been the one to be chosen?" I persisted, anxious to stifle my demon of doubt at its birth.
"You are thinking of Brook," she caught me up instantly. "Let that give you no uneasiness. Brook was only an incident—a rather pleasant incident," she added, and for the first time I realized how exquisitely tantalizing Jean could be, "but an incident after all. Let's not talk about it, or think about it, any more, at all. Everything is settled."
So, by force of will, we turned our minds into happy, unquestioning channels, and talked of the future, our future—and built fairy dream-castles that were most wonderful things to dream about. From time to time Jean arose from my knee to throw fresh wood on the fire, but she needed no coaxing to return. Some strange phenomenon had already occurred between us, and Jean, with all her gentleness and beauty and delicacy, no longer walled herself about with quite the same barrier of shyness as had been her custom. But her soul, I knew, was as pure as the snow sifting across the white prairies outside.