He couldn't bear to
live there any more. He'd been so happy. So he moved away, though he
had a fine practice."
The listener gave forth a murmur of sympathetic understanding.
Devotion to a beautiful woman was matter of immediate appeal to him.
His respect for the doctor rose in proportion, especially when the
devotion was weighed in the balance against a fine practice. Looking
at the girl's profile with prim black curls against the cheek, he saw
the French-Canadian mother, and said not gallantly, but rather timidly:
"And you're like your mother, I suppose? You're dark like a French
woman."
She answered this with a brusque denial. Extracting compliments from
the talk of a shy young Westerner was evidently not her strong point.
"Oh, no! not at all. My mother was pale and tall, with very large
black eyes. I am short and dark and my eyes are only just big enough
to see out of. She was delicate and I am very strong. My father says
I've never been sick since I got my first teeth."
She looked at him and laughed, and he realized it was the first time he
had seen her do it. It brightened her face delightfully, making the
eyes she had spoken of so disparagingly narrow into dancing slits.
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