And as
she gazed the sun burst through the gray clouds and poured down upon the
wide, bare hillside an unbroken flood of golden splendor.
Hearing a slight sound behind her, she turned quickly. Seagreave had
entered and, approaching the window, stood looking at the white sloping
plain without.
"I couldn't chop any more wood," he said. "It seemed too commonplace
after this thing that we have seen. But you--how are you?"
"I'm all right," she returned. But she did not meet his eyes; her black
lashes lay long on her cheek; her cheek burned. She realized in a
confused way that there was some change in their relative positions. She
had always felt because of his reticence, his withdrawal into self, his
diffidence in approaching her, easily mistress of any situation which
might arise between them; but since those moments when they two had
gazed upon the avalanche, and she in her terror had flung herself upon
his breast, and had wrapped her arms about him and buried her face in
his shoulder, he had assumed not only the tone but the manner of
authority and had adopted again a natural habit of command, dropped or
laid aside from indifference or inertia, but instinctively resumed when
through some powerful feeling he became again his normal self, alive and
alert, vigorous and enthusiastic. It was as if he had suddenly awakened
to a whole world of new possibilities and new opportunities.
Beneath his long, steady gaze her own eyelids fluttered and fell; her
cheeks flushed a deeper rose; her heart beat madly.
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