“That’s one of my few blessings.... Now you try your hand at mixing the second batch of dough.”
She made a picture on her knees, with her sleeves rolled up, her beautiful hands white with flour, her face beginning to flush. Adam wanted to laugh at her absolute failure to mix dough, and at the same moment he had it in him to weep over the earnestness, the sadness, the pathetic meaning of her.
Eventually they prepared the meal, and she carried Virey’s breakfast in to him. Then she returned to eat with Adam.
“I shall wash the dishes,” she announced.
“No,” he protested.
Then came a clash. It ended with a compromise. And from that clash Adam realized he might dominate her in little things, but in a great conflict of wills she would be the stronger. It was a step in his own slow education. There was a constitutional difference between men and women.
Upon Adam’s resumption of the work around the shack Mrs. Virey helped him as much as he would permit, which by midday was somewhat beyond her strength. Her face sunburned rosily and her hands showed the contact with dirt and her boots were dusty.
“You mustn’t overdo it,” he advised. “Rest and sleep during the noon hours.”
She retired within the shack and did not reappear till the middle of the afternoon. Meanwhile, Adam had worked at his tasks, trying at the same time to keep an eye on Virey, who wandered around aimlessly over the rock-strewn field, idling here and plodding there. Adam saw how Virey watched the shack; and when Magdalene came out again he saw her and grew as motionless as the stone where he leaned. Every thought of Virey’s must have been dominated by this woman’s presence, the meaning of her, the possibilities of her, the tragedy of her.
“Oh, how I slept!” she exclaimed. “Is it work that makes you sleep?”