There were times, even now, when Prosper tried to argue himself back

into sardonic self-possession. "Pooh!" said his brain, "you were

beside yourself over a loss and then you were shut in for months of

winter alone with this mountain girl, so naturally you are off your

balance." He would school himself while Joan shoveled outdoors. He

would try to see her with critical, clear eyes when she strode in. But

one look at her and he was bemused again. For now she was at a great

height of beauty, vivid with growing strength and purpose, her lips

calm and scarlet, her eyes bright and hopeful. In fact, Joan had made

her plans. She would wait till spring, partly to get back her full

strength, partly to make further progress in her studies, but mostly

in order not to hurt this hospitable Prosper Gael. The naïveté of

her gratitude, of her delicate consideration for his feelings, which

continually triumphed over an instinctive fear, would have filled him

with amusement, perhaps with compunction, had he been capable of

understanding them. She was truly sorry that she had hurt him by

running away. She told herself she would not do that again. In the

spring she would make him a speech of thankfulness and of farewell,

and then she would tramp back to Pierre's homestead and win and hold

Pierre's land. As yet, you see, Prosper entered very little into her

conscious life. Somewhere, far down in her, there was a disturbance, a

growing doubt, a something vague and troubling.... Joan had not learnt

to probe her own heart. A sensation was not, or it was. She was

puzzled by the feeling Prosper was beginning to cause her, a feeling

of miserable complexity; but she was not yet mentally equipped for the

confronting of complexity. It was necessary for an emotion to rush at

Joan and throw down, as it were, her heart before she recognized it;

even then she might not give it a name. She would act, however, and

with violence.

So now she planned and worked and grew beautiful with work and

planning, while Prosper curbed his passion and worked, too, and his

instruments were delicate and deadly and his plans made no account of

hers. Every word he read to her, every note he played for her, had its

calculated effect. He worked on her subconsciousness, undermining her

path, and at nights and in her sleep she grew aware of him.

But even now, in his cool and passionate heart there were moments of

reaction, one at last that came near to wrecking his purpose.




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