Her soft, dark eyes flashed to meet his, timidly and yet with an effect of fine spirit.
"Si, señor."
"Good. Shake hands on it, little partner."
She came forward reluctantly, as if she were pushed toward him by some inner compulsion. Her shy embarrassment, together with the sweetness of the glad emotion that trembled in her filmy eyes, lent her a rare charm.
For just an instant her brown fingers touched his, then she turned and fled from the room.
Mrs. Corbett presently bustled in, fat, fifty, and friendly.
"I can't hardly look you in the face," he apologized, with his most winning smile. "I reckon I've been a nuisance a-plenty, getting sick on your hands like a kid."
Mrs. Corbett answered his smile as she arranged the coverlets.
"You'll just have to be good for a spell to make up for it. No more ten-mile walks, Mr. Muir, till the knee is all right."
"I reckon you better call me Gordon, ma'am." His mind passed to what she had said about his walk. "Ce'tainly that was a fool pasear for a man to take. Comes of being pig-headed, Mrs. Corbett. And Doc Watson had told me not to use that game leg much. But, of course, I knew best," he sighed ruefully.