“Every woman does. We want to grind ’em under our heels,” she stamped in the snow to show him; “but Baldy and I are a pair of Cinderellas, minus—godmothers——”
She was in a gay mood. She was wrapped in her old orange cape, and the sun, breaking the bank of sullen clouds in the west, seemed to turn her lithe young body into flame.
“Don’t you love a day like this, Evans?” She pressed forward up the hill with all her strength. Evans followed, panting. At the top they sat down for a moment on an old log—which faced the long aisles of snow between thin black trees. The vista was clear-cut and almost artificial in its restraint of color and its wide bare spaces.
Evans’ little dog, Rusty, ran back and forth—following this trail and that. Finally in pursuit of a rabbit, he was led far afield. They heard him barking madly in the distance. It was the only sound in the stillness.
“Jane,” Evans said, “do you remember the last time we were here?”
“Yes.” The light went out of her eyes.
“As I look back it was heaven, Jane. I’d give anything on God’s earth if I was where I was then.”
All the blood was drained from her face. “Evans, you wouldn’t,” passionately, “you wouldn’t give up those three years in France——”
He sat very still. Then he said tensely, “No, I wouldn’t, even though it has made me lose you—Jane——”
“You mustn’t say such things——”