第87章

But I don't believe I wes half as deep in love as I thought Iwas. I don't want to say anything against her; I've no right, for she's a thousand times better than I am. But she's different. She never would understand our ways, Mother Hart, or look at life as we do; some people go through life looking at the little things that don't matter, and passing by the other, bigger things. If you keep your eye glued to a microscope long enough, you're sure to lose the sense of proportion.

"She won't speak to me," he continued after a short silence. "Itried to talk to her yesterday--""But you must remember, the poor child was hysterical that day when--she went on so. She doesn't know anything about the realities of life. She doesn't mean to be hard.""Yesterday," said Grant with an odd little smile, "she was not hysterical. It seems that--shooting--was the last little weight that tilted the scale against me. I don't think she ever cared two whoops for me, to tell you the truth. She's been ashamed of my Indian blood all along; she said so. And I'm not a good lover; I neglected her all the while this trouble lasted, and Ipaid more attention to Georgie Howard than I did to her--and Ididn't satisfactorily explain about that hair and knife that Hagar had. And--oh, it isn't the killing, altogether! I guess we were both a good deal mistaken in our feelings.""Well, I hope so," sighed Phoebe, wondering secretly at the decadence of love. An emotion that could burn high and hot in a week, flare bravely for a like space, and die out with no seared heart to pay for the extravagance--she shook her head at it.

That was not what she had been taught to call love, and she wondered how a man and a maid could be mistaken about so vital an emotion.

"I suppose," she added with unusual sarcasm for her, "you'll be falling in love with Georgie Howard, next thing anybody knows;and maybe that will last a week or ten days before you find out you were MISTAKEN!"Good Indian gave her one of his quick, sidelong glances.

"She would not be eternally apologizing to herself for liking me, anyway," he retorted acrimoniously, as if he found it very hard to forgive Evadna her conscious superiority of race and upbringing. "Squaw.""Oh, I haven't a doubt of that!" Phoebe rose to the defense of her own blood. "I don't know as it's in her to apologize for anything. I never saw such a girl for going right ahead as if her way is the only way! Bull-headed, I'd call her." She looked at Good Indian afterward, studying his face with motherly solicitude.

"I believe you're half in love with her right now and don't know it!" she accused suddenly.

Good Indian laughed softly and bent to his work again.

"ARE you, Grant?" Phoebe laid a moist hand on his shoulder, and felt the muscles sliding smoothly beneath his clothing while he moved a rock. "I ain't mad because you and Vadnie fell out; Ikind of looked for it to happen. Love that grows like a mushroom lasts about as long--only _I_ don't call it love! You might tell me--""Tell you what?" But Grant did not look up. "If I don't know it, I can't tell it." He paused in his lifting and rested his hands upon his knees, the fingers dripping water back into the spring.

He felt that Phoebe was waiting, and he pressed his lips together. "Must a man be in love with some woman all the time?"He shook his fingers impatiently so that the last drops hurried to the pool.

"She's a good girl, and a brave girl," Phoebe remarked irrelevantly.

Good Indian felt that she was still waiting, with all the quiet persistence of her sex when on the trail of a romance. He reached up and caught the hand upon his shoulder, and laid it against his cheek. He laughed surrender.

"Squaw-talk-far-off heap smart," he mimicked old Peppajee gravely. "Heap bueno." He stood up as suddenly as he had started his rock-lifting a few minutes before, and taking Phoebe by the shoulders, shook her with gentle insistence. "Put don't make me fall out of one love right into another," he protested whimsically. "Give a fellow time to roll a cigarette, can't you?"End