Bo fell off her seat with a high, trilling laugh. “Oh, you two are great!”
“Thank Heaven, I haven't been,” replied Helen, shortly.
“Then you don't know anythin' about life,” declared Dale, with finality.
Helen was not to be put down by that, dubious and troubled as it made her.
“Have you experienced all those things?” she queried, stubbornly.
“All but the last one. Love never came my way. How could it? I live alone. I seldom go to the villages where there are girls. No girl would ever care for me. I have nothin'.... But, all the same, I understand love a little, just by comparison with strong feelin's I've lived.”
Helen watched the hunter and marveled at his simplicity. His sad and penetrating gaze was on the fire, as if in its white heart to read the secret denied him. He had said that no girl would ever love him. She imagined he might know considerably less about the nature of girls than of the forest.
“To come back to myself,” said Helen, wanting to continue the argument. “You declared I didn't know myself. That I would have no self-control. I will!”
“I meant the big things of life,” he said, patiently.
“What things?”