Her hair of a sandy brown was stretched back brutally so
that her bright, devoted eyes--gray and honest eyes, very deep-set
beneath their brows--lacked the usual softness and mystery of women's
eyes. Her lips were tight set; her chin held out with an air of dogged
effort which seemed to possess no relation to her mechanical
occupation, yet to have a strong habitual relation to her state of
mind. She seemed, in fact, under a shell of self-control, to conceal
an inner light, like a dimly burning dark-lantern. Her expression
was dumb. She moved about like a deaf-mute. Indeed, her stillness
and stony self-repression were extraordinary.
A youth rose from a chair near the stove and greeted Hugh as he
entered.
"Hullo," he said. "How many did you get?"
It was the eager questioning of a modest, affectionate boy who curbs
his natural effervescence of greeting like a well-trained dog. The
tone was astonishingly young, a quiet, husky boy-voice.
"Damn you, Pete!" was snarled at him for answer. "Haven't you got
my boot mended yet?"
The boot, still lacking its heel, lay on the floor near the stove,
and Hugh now picked it up and hurled it half across the room.
"I have to get out into this ice chest of a wilderness and this
flaming glare that cuts my eyeballs open, and work till the sweat
freezes on my face, and then come home to find you loafing by the
fire as if you were a house cat--purring and rubbing against my legs
when I come in," he snarled.
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