Page:GB Lancaster--law-bringer.djvu/50

48 Then she dropped on the window-seat and laughed with the two men until her eyes ran over.

"You're not fit to live, Slicker," she said. "Go away. Go away and die. But don't do it on the door step. I mean it. Indeed I do! You haven't left me one berry for supper, and you've made me lose my temper, and you're in disgrace. Good-bye. You can come back for your socks to-morrow. And—shut the door."

They heard his serene whistle as he strolled down the mud-track to the Lake. Then Jennifer glanced up at Tempest.

"You'll stay to supper, won't you?" she said. "Harry will surely be in directly.

"Thanks," said Tempest absently. "I shall be very pleased."

He watched her as she drew the wool through Slicker's socks, and that skeleton behind Ducane's door seemed to take shape and move about her. How long would this little ardent girl believe in the "true wonderful beauty of Life?" Or was she perhaps filled with the great heart and the inner wisdom which can hold to it and know it through all pains? Jennifer glanced at him again.

"You don't believe what Slicker says, do you?" she asked.

"Why—every sweeping statement is true and untrue. Slicker has heard so much of what he calls hot air talked about us and every other phase of western life that he quite naturally goes to the other extreme. I imagine you're just men and women out here, you know—the same as in most places. But we're fighting out these ordinary passions and joys and agonies under unusually primeval conditions, and—and I want you to make allowances for that." He hesitated, wondering if he dared give a warning plain enough for her to take. "Men get rougher. They slough off a lot of conventionalities, and there's quite a good deal of the brute in human nature. They do ugly things, maybe, because they haven't got the perspective to know how ugly they are."

"I haven't seen any of the ugly things," said Jennifer softly.

Tempest looked out on the placid lake where a couple