Hard upon his reply her eyes flashed with indignation.
"Pooh!" she scoffed, "Pooh! Most any old clock will run, after
somebody's wound it up!"
It was a trick of speech that she had learned from him, but his
employment of parallel, lazily amiable for the most part, had never
been so hotly partisan as was hers at that moment. And suddenly
self-conscious--suddenly confused and warmly disconcerted at the
quality of his gaze--she had to hide her head. But she hid it upon a
shoulder most conveniently at hand.
Spring gave way to early summer--and now Steve was able to be on his
feet again, so absurdly uncertain of balance at first, however, that
she ridiculed him unmercifully one moment, only to rush to him in a
panic of solicitude the next. There came long walks, and longer trips
in the saddle; came hours of silence that were the more wonderful for
want of words--hours in which, in a hushed voice, she gave him shyly of
her plans. But always, too, the interruptions grew more and more
frequent and insistent. Fat Joe and McLean, and even Hardwick Elliott,
made more and more pressing demands upon his time, until finally he
insisted that he could no longer play, shamelessly, the invalid. He
must look in upon the works up-river, if only for the moral effect
which it would have upon the men. She assented, grudgingly; it would
be but a day or two.
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