"You wait a jiff and I'll ask how he is."
Tira came, in answer to his knock. She was gravely calm, not even disturbed in her secret mind, Raven concluded, not keyed up by inner apprehension, and keeping herself firm. Where, he wondered absently, at the same instant, did she get those clothes, blue, always worn to the exact point of soft loveliness, the very moral of her eyes? She glanced down the path at Nan, and Nan waved to her. Tira gave a serious little bow and turned her glance to Raven, who inquired:
"It pains him a good deal," she said, with that softness he had noted in her voice while they dressed the hurt. "He has to set with it in a chair. It worries him to death not to git round."
"Good Lord!" said Raven. "You must think I'm a nice chap. Who's doing the barn work?"
"Oh," said Tira, "that's all right. I can see to that. I always do when he's gone for day's works."
"Oh, yes, I can." Now she smiled at him, beautifully, bewilderingly, for his kindness in asking. "I done it before dinner. That's nothin'. Besides, I like it: takes me out door."
"Don't do any more," said Raven. "We'll be over, 'long about four o'clock, Jerry or I." Then, for he had forgotten Tenney, in his awareness of her, he remembered to ask: "The doctor came, did he?"
She shook her head, and then offered, it seemed unwillingly:
"He thought he might be laid up quite a spell."
To Raven, that seemed so desirable, that he wondered at the commiseration in her voice; evidently she could be sorry for Tenney without an admixture of relief at having him safely fettered for a while.
"Well," he said, "I'll be over. And if there's anything----" he stopped and looked her in the eyes, gravely authoritative. It was the first time their two inner selves had met in such unrestrained interchange. If there was anything he could do for her, the glance said, she was to know he would do it, to the very limit of allegiance. What did her own glance say? Was there acceptance in it? Not so much that as a grave understanding and gratitude. He was her refuge, her strength. She might still go winging brokenly about the obscurity that made her life, but he was the shelter where she might take cover if she would. Their gaze broke (it was locked there an instant only) and however she felt in turning from him, Raven had the sensation of dragging his eyes away.