Miss Nellie murmured something confidentially to the third button of his hunting shirt."But that,"he replied,with a smile,"THAT wouldn't be any more practical,and you wouldn't want others to call me dar--"Her fingers loosened around his neck,she drew her head back,and a singular expression passed over her face,which to any calmer observer than a lover would have seemed,however,to indicate more curiosity than jealousy.
"Who else DOES call you so?"she added earnestly."How many,for instance?"Low's reply was addressed not to her ear,but her lips.She did not avoid it,but added,"And do you kiss them all like that?"Taking him by the shoulders,she held him a little way from her,and gazed at him from head to foot.Then drawing him again to her embrace,she said,"I don't care,at least no woman has kissed you like that."Happy,dazzled,and embarrassed,he was beginning to stammer the truthful protestation that rose to his lips,but she stopped him:"No,don't protest!say nothing!Let ME love YOU--that is all.It is enough."He would have caught her in his arms again,but she drew back."We are near the road,"she said quietly."Come!You promised to show me where you camped.Let US make the most of our holiday.In an hour Imust leave the woods."
"But I shall accompany you,dearest."
"No,I must go as I came--alone."
"But Nellie--"
"I tell you no,"she said,with an almost harsh practical decision,incompatible with her previous abandonment."We might be seen together.""Well,suppose we are;we must be seen together eventually,"he remonstrated.
The young girl made an involuntary gesture of impatient negation,but checked herself."Don't let us talk of that now.Come,while I am here under your own roof--"she pointed to the high interlaced boughs above them--"you must be hospitable.Show me your home;tell me,isn't it a little gloomy sometimes?""It never has been;I never thought it WOULD be until the moment you leave it to-day."She pressed his hand briefly and in a half-perfunctory way,as if her vanity had accepted and dismissed the compliment."Take me somewhere,"she said inquisitively,"where you stay most;I do not seem to see you HERE,"she added,looking around her with a slight shiver."It is so big and so high.Have you no place where you eat and rest and sleep?""Except in the rainy season,I camp all over the place--at any spot where I may have been shooting or collecting.""Collecting?"queried Nellie.
"Yes;with the herbarium,you know."
"Yes,"said Nellie dubiously."But you told me once--the first time we ever talked together,"she added,looking in his eyes--"something about your keeping your things like a squirrel in a tree.Could we not go there?Is there not room for us to sit and talk without being brow-beaten and looked down upon by these supercilious trees?""It's too far away,"said Low truthfully,but with a somewhat pronounced emphasis,"much too far for you just now;and it lies on another trail that enters the wood beyond.But come,I will show you a spring known only to myself,the wood ducks,and the squirrels.I discovered it the first day I saw you,and gave it your name.But you shall christen it yourself.It will be all yours,and yours alone,for it is so hidden and secluded that Idefy any feet but my own or whoso shall keep step with mine to find it.Shall that foot be yours,Nellie?"Her face beamed with a bright assent."It may be difficult to track it from here,"he said,"but stand where you are a moment,and don't move,rustle,nor agitate the air in any way.The woods are still now."He turned at right angles with the trail,moved a few paces into the ferns and underbrush,and then stopped with his finger on his lips.For an instant both remained motionless;then with his intent face bent forward and both arms extended,he began to sink slowly upon one knee and one side,inclining his body with a gentle,perfectly-graduated movement until his ear almost touched the ground.Nellie watched his graceful figure breathlessly,until,like a bow unbent,he stood suddenly erect again,and beckoned to her without changing the direction of his face.
"What is it?"she asked eagerly.
"All right;I have found it,"he continued,moving forward without turning his head.
"But how?What did you kneel for?"He did not reply,but taking her hand in his continued to move slowly on through the underbrush,as if obeying some magnetic attraction."How did you find it?"again asked the half-awed girl,her voice unconsciously falling to a whisper.Still silent,Low kept his rigid face and forward tread for twenty yards further;then he stopped and released the girl's half-impatient hand."How did you find it?"she repeated sharply.
"With my ears and nose,"replied Low gravely.
"With your nose?"
"Yes;I smelt it."
Still fresh with the memory of his picturesque attitude,the young man's reply seemed to involve something more irritating to her feelings than even that absurd anticlimax.She looked at him coldly and critically,and appeared to hesitate whether to proceed."Is it far?"she asked.
"Not more than ten minutes now,as I shall go.""And you won't have to smell your way again?""No;it is quite plain now,"he answered seriously,the young girl's sarca** slipping harmlessly from his Indian stolidity.
"Don't you smell it yourself?"
But Miss Nellie's thin,cold nostrils refused to take that vulgar interest.
"Nor hear it?Listen!"
"You forget I suffer the misfortune of having been brought up under a roof,"she replied coldly.