There were times, even now, when Prosper tried to argue himself back
into sardonic self-possession. "Pooh!" said his brain, "you were
beside yourself over a loss and then you were shut in for months of
winter alone with this mountain girl, so naturally you are off your
balance." He would school himself while Joan shoveled outdoors. He
would try to see her with critical, clear eyes when she strode in. But
one look at her and he was bemused again. For now she was at a great
height of beauty, vivid with growing strength and purpose, her lips
calm and scarlet, her eyes bright and hopeful. In fact, Joan had made
her plans. She would wait till spring, partly to get back her full
strength, partly to make further progress in her studies, but mostly
in order not to hurt this hospitable Prosper Gael. The naïveté of
her gratitude, of her delicate consideration for his feelings, which
continually triumphed over an instinctive fear, would have filled him
with amusement, perhaps with compunction, had he been capable of
understanding them. She was truly sorry that she had hurt him by
running away. She told herself she would not do that again. In the
spring she would make him a speech of thankfulness and of farewell,
and then she would tramp back to Pierre's homestead and win and hold
Pierre's land. As yet, you see, Prosper entered very little into her
conscious life. Somewhere, far down in her, there was a disturbance, a
growing doubt, a something vague and troubling.... Joan had not learnt
to probe her own heart. A sensation was not, or it was. She was
puzzled by the feeling Prosper was beginning to cause her, a feeling
of miserable complexity; but she was not yet mentally equipped for the
confronting of complexity. It was necessary for an emotion to rush at
Joan and throw down, as it were, her heart before she recognized it;
even then she might not give it a name. She would act, however, and
with violence.
So now she planned and worked and grew beautiful with work and
planning, while Prosper curbed his passion and worked, too, and his
instruments were delicate and deadly and his plans made no account of
hers. Every word he read to her, every note he played for her, had its
calculated effect. He worked on her subconsciousness, undermining her
path, and at nights and in her sleep she grew aware of him.
But even now, in his cool and passionate heart there were moments of
reaction, one at last that came near to wrecking his purpose.