If he held her hand another moment, she trembled, she'd be on his lap,
in his arms--lost. And he was holding it. He was---Oh, he was too old for her. Yes, and too paternal. But still---- Life
with Jeff would be protected, kindly, honorable.
Yet all the time she wanted, and stormily knew she wanted, to be fleeing
to the boy Milt, her mate; to run away with him, hand in hand,
discovering all the colored world, laughing at life, not afraid of
losing dignity. In fear of Jeff's very kindliness and honor, she jerked
her hand free. Then she tried to smile like a clever fencer.
As she retreated to her chair she stammered, "Did you---- Was Alaska
interesting?"
He did not let her go, this time. Easy, cat-like for all his dry
gravity, he sauntered after her, and with a fine high seriousness
pleaded his case: "Claire dear, those few weeks of fighting nature were a revelation to
me. I'm going to have lots more of it. As it happens, they need me
there. There's plenty of copper, but there's big transportation and
employment problems that I seem better able to solve than the other
chaps--though of course I'm an absolute muff when it comes to
engineering problems. But I've had certain training and--I'm going to
arrange things so that I get up there at least once a year. Next summer
I'll make a much longer trip--see the mountains--oh, glorious
mountains--and funny half-Russian towns, and have some fishing----
Wandering. The really big thing. Even finer than your superb plucky trip
through----"
"Wasn't plucky! I'm a cry baby," she said, like a bad, contradictory
little girl.
He didn't argue it. He smiled and said "Tut!" and placidly catalogued
her with, "You're the pluckiest girl I've ever seen, and it's all the
more amazing because you're not a motion-picture Tomboy, but essentially
exquisite----"
"I'm a grub."
"Very well, then. You're a grub. So am I. And I like it. And when I make
the big Alaskan trip next year I want you to go along! Claire! Haven't
you any idea how terribly close to me the thought of you has been these
weeks? You've guided me through the wilderness----"
"It's---- I'm glad." She sprang up, beseeching, "Jeff dear, you're going
to stay for tea? I must run up and powder my nose."
"Not until you say you're glad to see me. Child dear, we've been ambling
along and---- No. You aren't a child any more. You're a woman. And if
I've never been quite a man, but just a dusty office-machine, that's
gone now. I've got the wind of the wilderness in my lungs. Man and
woman! My woman! That's all I'm going to say now, but---- Oh my God,
Claire, I do need you so!"
He drew her head to his shoulder, and for an instant she rested there.
But as she looked up, she saw coming age in the granulated skin of his
throat.