The revelation of the moment made her at once triumphant and humiliated.
This white man had come to make love to her, that was apparent; but that
he, ungrammatical, crude, and rough, should think he had but to put out
his hand, and she in whom every subtle emotion and influence had delicate
response, whose words and ways were as far removed from his as day from
night, would fly to him, brought the flush of indignation to her cheek.
She responded to his toast with a pleasant nod, however, and said:
"But if you will keep coming in such wild storms, there will not be many
anniversaries." Laughing, she poured out another glass of liquor for
him.
"Well, now, p'r'aps you're right, and so the only thing to do is not to
keep coming, but to stay--stay right where you are."
The Indian woman could not see her daughter's face, which was turned to
the fire, but she herself smiled at John Alloway, and nodded her head
approvingly. Here was the cure for her own trouble and loneliness.
Pauline and she, who lived in different worlds, and yet were tied to each
other by circumstances they could not control, would each work out her
own destiny after her own nature, since John Alloway had come a-wooing.
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