We watched them out of sight, then she said:
"I have awaited your pleasure, Mr. Loskiel. Pray, in what further manner can I be of service to--my country?"
"I have come back to tell you," said I, "that you can be of no further use. Our errand to the Sagamore has now ended, and most happily. You have served your country better than you can ever understand. I have come to say so, and to thank you with--with a heart--very full."
"Have I then done well?" she asked slowly.
"Indeed you have!" I replied, with such a warmth of feeling that it surprised myself.
"Then why may I not understand this thing that I have done--for my country?"
She bit her lip, gazing at nothing over the ragged collar of her cape, and stood so, musing. And after a while she seemed to come to herself, wearily, and she cast a tragic upward glance at me. Then, dropping her eyes, and with the slightest inclination of her head, not looking at me at all, she started across the trampled grass.
"Wait----" I was by her side again in the same breath.
"Well, sir?" And she confronted me with cool mien and lifted brows. Under them her grey eyes hinted of a disdain which I had seen in them more than once.
"May I not suitably express my gratitude to you?" I said.
"I have tried to do so properly, but it is not easy for me to say how grateful to you we men of the Northland are--how deeply we must ever remain in your debt. Yet--I will attempt to express our thanks--if you care to listen."
After a pause: "Then--if there is nothing more to say--"
"There is, I tell you. Will you not listen?"
"I have been thanked--suitably.... I will say adieu, sir."
"Would you--would you so far favour me as to make known to me your name?" I said, stammering a little.
"Lois is my name," she said indifferently.
How it was now going with me I did not clearly understand, but it appeared to be my instinct not to let her slip away into the world without something more friendly said--some truer gratitude expressed--some warmth.
"Lois," I said very gravely, "what we Americans give to our country demands no ignoble reward. Therefore, I offer none of any sort. Yet, because you have been a good comrade to me--and because now we are about to go our different ways into the world before us--I ask of you two things. May I do so?"