months Hanson was content to write to her and to extract what comfort he
could from her notes to her mother. These he invested with cryptic and
hidden meanings endeavoring to find a veiled message for himself in
every line. But presently, growing impatient, he began to beg her for a
word, only a word, but sent directly from her to him; yet, although the
summer had waned to autumn, she remained obdurate, her will and her
pride still stronger than her love.

Sometimes in the evening Hugh would beg her to dance, but she always
refused. The desire for that spontaneous and natural form of expression
was gone from her; and once when Hugh had persisted in urging her, she
had left the room, nor appeared again all evening, so that it became a
custom not to mention her dancing to her.

"Gosh a'mighty!" cried Mrs. Nitschkan robustly, looking up from a book
of flies over which she had been poring, "think of getting a man on the
brain like that."

José, who had been putting away the supper dishes, assisted by Mrs.
Thomas, who had regarded the opportunity as propitious for certain
elephantine coquetries, stopped to regard the gypsy with that peering
mixture of amusement and curiosity which she ever evoked in him.

"But, Nitschkan," he asked, "were you never crazy about a man?"

"Marthy Thomas knows more about such goin's on than me," she returned
equably; "but since you ask me, I was crazy once about Jack, and another
awful pretty girl had him. But that wasn't all." She slapped her knee
in joyous and triumphant remembrance, and the cabin echoed with her
laughter.