She lay as he had left her, except that her face was now pillowed in
her arms, and the long sobs kept her body quivering. Curiosity swept
over Pierre, looking down at her, but chiefly a puzzled grief such as
a man feels when a friend is in trouble. He came closer and laid a
hand on her shoulder.
"Jack!"
She turned far enough to strike his hand away and instantly resumed
her former position, though the sobs were softer. This childish anger
irritated him. He was about to storm out of the room when the thought
of the hundred dollars stopped him. The bet had been made, and it
seemed unsportsmanlike to leave without some effort.
The effort which he finally made was that suggested by Wilbur. He
folded his arms and stood silent, waiting, and ready to judge the time
as nearly as he could until the five minutes should have elapsed. He
was so busy computing the minutes that it was with a start that he
noticed some time later that the weeping had ceased. She lay quiet.
Her hand was dabbing furtively at her face for a purpose which Pierre
could not surmise.
At last a broken voice murmured: "Pierre!"
He would not speak, but something in the voice made his anger go.
After a little it came, and louder this time: "Pierre?"
He did not stir.
She whirled and sat on the edge of the bunk, crying: "Pierre!" with a
note of fright.
Still he persisted in that silence, his arms folded, the keen blue
eyes considering her as if from a great distance.
She explained: "I was afraid--Pierre! Why don't you speak? Tell me,
are you angry?"
And she sprang up and made a pace toward him. She had never seemed so
little manlike, so wholly womanly. And the hand which stretched toward
him, palm up, was a symbol of everything new and strange that he
found in her.
He had seen it balled to a small, angry fist, brown and dangerous; he
had seen it gripping the butt of a revolver, ready for the draw; he
had seen it tugging at the reins and holding a racing horse in check
with an ease which a man would envy; but never before had he seen it
turned palm up, to his knowledge; and now, because he could not speak
to her, according to his plan, he studied her thoroughly for the
first time.
Slender and marvelously made was that hand. The whole woman was in
it, made for beauty, not for use. It was all he could do to keep from
exclaiming.
She made a quick step toward him, eager, uncertain: "Pierre, I thought
you had left me--that you were gone, and angry."
Something caught on fire in Pierre, but still he would say nothing. He
was beginning to feel a cruel pleasure in his victory, but it was not
without a deep sense of danger.
She had laid aside her six-gun, but she had not abandoned it. She had
laid aside her anger, but she could resume it again as swiftly as she
could take up her revolver.
She cried with a little burst of rage: "Pierre, you are making a game
of me!"
But seeing that he did not change she altered swiftly and caught his
hand in both of hers. She spoke the name which she always used when
she was greatly moved.
"Ah, Pierre le Rouge, what have I done?"
His silence tempted her on like the smile of the sphinx.
And suddenly she was inside his arms, though how she separated them he
could not tell, and crying: "Pierre, I am unhappy. Help me, Pierre!"
It was true, then, and Wilbur had won his bet. But how could it have
happened? He took the arms that encircled his neck and brought them
slowly down, and watched her curiously. Something was expected of him,
but what it was he could not tell, for women were as strange to him as
the wild sea is strange to the Arab.
He hunted his mind, and then: "One of the boys has angered you, Jack?"
And she said, because she could think of no way to cover the confusion
which came to her after the outbreak: "Yes."
He dropped her arms and strode a pace or two up and down the room.
"Gandil?"
"N-no!" "You're lying. It was Gandil."
And he made straight for the door.
She ran after him and flung herself between him and the door. Clearly,
as if it were a painted picture, she saw him facing Gandil--saw their
hands leap for the guns--saw Gandil pitch face forward on the floor.
"Pierre--for God's sake!"
Her terror convinced him partially, and the furor went back from his
eyes as a light goes back in a long, dark hall.
"On your honor, Jack, it's not Gandil?"
"On my honor."
"But someone has broken you up. And he's here--he's one of us, this
man who's bothered you."
She could not help but answer: "Yes."
He scowled down at the floor.
"You would never be able to guess who it is. Give it up. After all--I
can live through it--I guess."
He took her face between his hands and frowned down into her eyes.
"Tell me his name, Jack, and the dog--"
She said: "Let me go. Take your hands away, Pierre."
He obeyed her, deeply worried, and she stood up for a moment with a
hand pressed over her eyes, swaying. He had never seen her like this;
he was like a pilot striving to steer his ship through an unfathomable
fog. Following what had become an instinct with him, he raised his
left hand and touched the cross beneath his throat. And inspiration
came to him.