"I wouldn't have stayed longer in that house for anything in the world," said Nora with passion.
"There you are; that's just what I have been telling you," he said, nodding his head. "And this morning, when I came for you at the Y. W. C. A., you wanted bad to say you wouldn't marry me. When you shook hands with me your hand was like ice. You tried to speak the words, but they wouldn't come."
"After all, one isn't married every day of one's life, is one? I admit I was nervous for the moment."
"If I hadn't shown you the license and the ring, I guess you wouldn't have done it. You hadn't the nerve to back out of it then."
"I hadn't slept a wink all night. I kept on turning it over in my mind. I was frightened at what I'd done. I didn't know a soul in Winnipeg. I hadn't anywhere to go. I had four dollars in my pocket. I had to go on with it."
"Well, you took pretty good stock of me in the train on the way here, I guess," he laughed, pacing up and down the room.
"What makes you think so?" asked Nora, who had recovered her coolness.
"Well, I felt you was looking at me a good deal while I was asleep," he jeered. "It wasn't hard to see that you was turning me over in your mind. What conclusion did you come to?"
Nora evaded the question for the moment.
"You see, I lived all these years with an old lady. I know very little about men."
"I guessed that."
"I came to the conclusion that you were a decent fellow and I thought you would be kind to me."
"Bouquets are just flying round! Have you got anything more to say to me?" he asked, seating himself once more in his chair.
"No, I think not."
"Then just get me my tobacco pouch, will you? I guess you'll find it in the pocket of my coat."
With narrowed eyes, he watched her first hesitate, and then bring it to him.
"Here you are." Her tone was crisp.
"I thought you was going to tell me I could darned well get it myself," he laughed.
"I don't very much like to be ordered about," she said smoothly; "I didn't realize it was one of your bad habits."
"You never paid much attention to me or my habits till to-day, I reckon."
"I was always polite to you."
"Oh, very! But I was the hired man, and you'd never let me forget it. You thought yourself a darned sight better than me, because you could play the piano and speak French. But we ain't got a piano and there ain't anyone as speaks French nearer than Winnipeg."
"I don't just see what you're driving at."
"Parlor tricks ain't much good on the prairie. They're like dollar bills up in Hudson Bay country. Tobacco's the only thing you can trade with an Esquimaux. You can't cook very well, you don't know how to milk a cow; why, you can't even harness a horse."
"Are you regretting your bargain already?"
"No," he said, going over to the shelf in search of the matches, "I guess I can teach you. But if I was you"--he paused, the lighted match in his fingers, to look at her--"I wouldn't put on any airs. We'll get on O. K., I guess, when we've shaken down."
"You'll find I am perfectly capable of taking care of myself," she said with emphasis, speaking each word slowly. She returned his steady gaze and felt a thrill of victory when he looked away.
"When two people live in a shack," he went on as if she had not spoken, "there's got to be a deal of give and take on both sides. As long as you do what I tell you you'll be all right."
A sort of an angry smile crossed Nora's face.
"It's unfortunate that when anyone tells me to do a thing, I have an irresistible desire not to do it."
"I guess I tumbled to that. You must get over it."
"You've spoken to me once or twice in a way I don't like. I think we shall get on better if you ask me to do things."
"Don't forget that I can make you do them," he said brutally.
"How?" Really, he was amusing!
"Well, I'm stronger than you are."
"A man can hardly use force in his dealings with a woman," she reminded him.
"O-o-o-oh?"
"You seem surprised."
"What's going to prevent him?"
"Don't be so silly," she retorted as she turned to look once more out of the window. But her hands were clammy and, somehow, even though her back was turned toward him, she knew that he was smiling.
CHAPTER XIII
How much time elapsed before he spoke she had no means of knowing; probably, at most, two or three minutes. But to the woman gazing out blindly through the cobweb-covered window into the night, it might well have been hours. For some illogical reason, which she could not have explained to herself, she had the feeling that the victory in the coming struggle would lie with the one who kept silent the longer. To break the nerve-wrecking spell would be a betrayal of weakness.
None the less, she had arrived at the point when, the tension on her own nerves becoming too great, she felt she must scream, drive her clenched hand through the glass of the window, or perform some other act of hysterical violence; then he spoke, and in the ordinary tone of daily life.
"Well, I'm going to unpack my grip."
The tone, together with the commonplace words, had the effect of a cold douche. She drew a sharp breath of relief, her hands unclenched. She was herself once more. She'd won.
She turned slowly, as if reluctant to abandon the starry prospect without, to find him bending over a clutter of things scattered about his half-emptied case. She had been about to say that she must see to unpacking some of her own things.
"Wash up them things." He jerked his bowed head toward the littered table.
For the first time, his tone was curt.
But she was too much mistress of herself and the situation now to be more than faintly annoyed by it.
"I'll wash them up in the morning," she said casually. She started toward the door behind which her box had been carried.
"Wash 'em up now, my girl. You'll find the only way to keep things clean is to wash 'em the moment you've done with 'em."
She smiled at him over her shoulder, her hand on the knob of the door. But she did not move.
"Did you hear what I said?"
"I did."
"Then why don't you do as I tell you?"
"Because I don't choose to."
"You ain't taking long to try it out, are you?" His face wore an ugly sneer.
"They say there's no time like the present."
"Are you going to wash up them things?"
"No."
There was a moment's silence while he held her eyes with his. Then, very slowly and deliberately he got up, poured some boiling water into a pan and placed it, together with a ragged dishcloth, on the table.
"Are you going to wash up them things?"
"No."
She was still cool and smiling: only, her grip on the knob of the door had tightened until the nails of her fingers were white.
"Do you want me to make you?"
"How can you do that?"
"I'll soon show you."
She waited the fraction of a moment.
"I'll just get out those rugs, shall I? I think the holdall was put in here. I expect it gets very cold toward morning."
She had opened the door now and stepped across the threshold. Her face was still turned toward his, but her smile was a little fixed.
"Nora."
"Yes."
"Come here."
"Why?"
"Because I tell you to."
Still, she did not move. In two strides he was over at her side. He stretched out his hand to seize her by the wrist.
"You daren't touch me!"
She pulled the door to sharply and stood with her back against it, facing him. Her face was as white as a linen mask, and about as expressionless. Only her eyes lived. Anger and fear had enlarged the pupils until they seemed black in the dead white of her face.
"You daren't!" she repeated.
"I daren't: who told you that?"
"Have you forgotten that I'm a woman?"
"No, I haven't. That's why I'm going to make you do as I tell you. If you were a man, I mightn't be able to. Come, now."