He faced the
rivermen again, and while he gripped at his own weakness, he tried
to count the flashings of their oars. And behind him, the
beautiful eyes of St. Pierre's wife were looking at him with a
strange glow in their depths.
"Do you know," he said, speaking slowly and still looking toward
the flashing of the oars, "something tells me that unexpected
things are going to happen when St. Pierre returns. I am going to
make a bet with him that I can whip Bateese. He will not refuse.
He will accept. And St. Pierre will lose, because I shall whip
Bateese. It is then that these unexpected things will begin to
happen. And I am wondering--after they do happen--if you will care
so very much?"
There was a moment of silence. And then, "I don't want you to
fight Bateese," she said.
The needles were working swiftly when he turned toward her again,
and a second time the long lashes shadowed what a moment before he
might have seen in her eyes.
XIII
The morning passed like a dream to Carrigan. He permitted himself
to live and breathe it as one who finds himself for a space in the
heart of a golden mirage. He was sitting so near Marie-Anne that
now and then the faint perfume of her came to him like the
delicate scent of a flower.
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