her mother's words, "He may have told Cass, but she is that still." She carried her basket carefully before her on the pommel of her saddle. Gradually the large sunbonnet which quite hid her face slipped back, and the sun lighted the bronze tints of her hair. As he rode at her side he studied her watchfully, so simply dressed in homespun material which had faded from its original color to a sort of turquoise green. The stuff was heavy and clung closely to her figure, and she rode easily, perched on her small, old-fashioned side-saddle, swaying with lithe movement to the motion of her horse. She wore no wrap, only a soft silk kerchief knotted about her neck, the fluttering ends of which caressed her chin.
Her cheeks became rosy with the exercise, and her gray eyes, under the green pines and among the dense laurel thickets, took on a warm, luminous green tint like the hue of her dress. David at last found it difficult to keep his eyes from her,—this veritable flower of the wilderness,—and all this time no word had been spoken between them. How impersonal and far away from him she seemed! While he was filled with interest in her and eager to learn the secret springs of her life, she was riding on and on, swaying to her horse as a flower on its slender stem sways in a breeze, as undisturbed by him as if she were not a human breathing girl, subject to man's dominating power.
Was she, then, so utterly untouched by his masculine presence? he wondered. If he did not speak first, would she keep silent forever? Should he wait and see? Should he will her to speak and of herself unfold to him?