At first he would not let himself believe what he read in her new gaze; that the natural woman who had sloughed off the burdens of an unhappy past was disposed to love him. But of course he could not really resist so sweet a suggestion. Let him tell himself all he liked that he was living in a fool's paradise; that when recollection returned, as it must in the end, she would think no more of him; nevertheless, when she looked at him like that, he could not help being happy. The journey took on a thousand new delights for him; such delights as his solitary youth had never known. At least, he told himself, there was no sin in it, for the only man who had a better claim on her was dead and buried.
One night they were camped beside some bare tepee poles on a point of the bank. Mary had gone off to set a night-line in an eddy; Stonor lay on his back in the grass smoking, and Clare sat near, nursing her knees.
"You've forbidden me to ask questions about myself," said she; "but how about you?"
She affected to study him with a disinterested air. "I don't believe you have a wife," she said wickedly. "You haven't a married look."
"Well, as a matter of fact, I'm not married," he said, grinning.
"Have you a sweetheart?" she asked in her abrupt way, so like a boy's.
Stonor regarded his pipe-bowl attentively, but did not thereby succeed in masking his blushes.
"Aha! You have!" she cried. "No need to answer."
"That depends on what you mean," he said, determined not to let her outface him. "If you mean a regular cut and dried affair, no."
"I don't know. I've had no instruction on the subject."
"Pshaw! It's a poor kind of man that needs instruction!"
"Well, for instance, do you like to be with her?"
Stonor affected to study the matter. "No," he said.
She gave him so comical a look of rebuke that he laughed outright. "I mean I'm uncomfortable whether I'm with her or away from her," he explained.
"There may be something in that," she admitted. "Have you ever told her?"
A close observer might have perceived under Clare's scornful chaffing the suggestion of a serious and anxious purpose. "Bless me! this is getting exciting!" she said. "Maybe the lady has a husband?"
A glint of relief showed under her lowered lids. "What's the trouble, then?"