He was compelled to respect her wishes, but his eyes spoke all that his tongue might have uttered. In the joy of meeting her, he had forgotten the part played by her father in his surreptitious attempt to gain possession of the Croix d’Or: but her first words reminded him of it:
“It has been terribly lonesome since you left. I have felt as if the whole world had deserted me. Dad is not a cheery sort of companion, because he is so absorbed by the Rattler that he lives with it, eats with it, sleeps with it. And, to make him 259 worse, something appears to have upset him in the last week or ten days until a bear would be a highly lovable companion by comparison.”
She failed to notice the gravity of his face, for he surmised how Sloan’s answer must have affected the owner of the Rattler, who strode mercilessly over all obstacles and men, but now had come to one which he could not surmount. He wondered how obdurate Bully Presby would prove if the time ever came when he dared ask for Joan, and whether, if the father refused, Joan’s will would override this opposition.
Studying the lines of her face, and the firm contour of her chin as it rounded into the grace of her throat, he had a joyful sense of confidence that she would not prove wanting, and dismissed Bully Presby from his thoughts. With a great embarrassment, he fumbled in the pocket of his shirt, and brought out a little box which he opened, to display a glittering gem. He held it toward her, in the palm of his hand; but she pulled her gloves over her fingers, and blushed and laughed.
“It seems to me,” she declared, “that you have plenty of assurance.”
“Why?” he insisted.
“Because I haven’t made my mind up––that far, yet, and because if I had I shouldn’t say so 260 until the Croix d’Or had been proven one way or the other.”
She stopped, awkwardly embarrassed, as if her objection had conveyed a suggestion that his financial standing had a bearing on her acceptance, and hastened to rectify it:
“Not that its success or the money it would bring has anything to do with it.”
“But if it failed?” he interrogated, striving to force her to an admission.