He was Billy,--genial and clever and good, unconventional, eager to learn, full of simple faith in human nature, honest and unaffected whether he was dealing with the president of a great business, or teaching Jim how to play his reel for trout,--and he had her whole heart. Whether she was laughing at his arguments, agreeing with his theories, walking silently at his side through the woods, or watching the expressions that followed each other on his absorbed face, while he cleaned his gun or scrutinized the detached parts of Mrs. Carroll's coffee-mill, Susan followed him with eyes into which a new expression had crept. She watched him swimming, flinging back an arc of bright drops with every jerk of his sleek wet head; she bent her whole devotion on the garments he brought her for buttons, hoping that he did not see the trembling of her hands, or the rush of color that his mere nearness brought to her face. She thrilled with pride when he came to bashfully consult her about the long letters he wrote from time to time to Clem Cudahy or Joseph Rassette, listened eagerly to his talks with the post-office clerk, the store-keeper, the dairymen and ranchers up on the mountain.
And always she found him good. "Too good for me," said Susan sadly to herself. "He has made the best of everything that ever came his way, and I have been a silly fool whenever I had half a chance."
The miracle was worked afresh for them, as for all lovers. This was no mere attraction between a man and a maid, such as she had watched all her life, Susan thought. This was some new and rare and wonderful event, as miraculous in the eyes of all the world as it was to her.
"I should be Susan Oliver," she thought with a quick breath. An actual change of name--how did other women ever survive the thrill and strangeness of itl "We should have to have a house," she told herself, lying awake one night. A house--she and Billy with a tiny establishment of their own, alone over their coffee-cups, alone under their lamp! Susan's heart went out to the little house, waiting for them somewhere. She hung a dream apron on the door of a dream kitchen, and went to meet a tired dream-Billy at the door--He would kiss her. The blood rushed to her face and she shut her happy eyes.
A dozen times a day she involved herself in some enterprise from which she could not extricate herself without his help. Billy had to take heavy logs out of her arms, had to lay a plank across the stretch of creek she could not cross, had to help her down from the crotch of a tree with widespread brotherly arms.