More than once, as she waited in the office for old John
Grier to come, she had a strange, intuitive feeling that Tarboe might
suddenly grip her in his arms.
She flushed at the thought of it; it seemed so absurd. Yet that very
thought had passed through the mind of the man. He was by nature a
hunter; he was self-willed and reckless. No woman had ever moved him in
his life until this girl crossed his path, and he reached out towards her
with the same will to control that he had used in the business of life.
Yet, while this brute force suggested physical control of the girl, it
had its immediate reaction. She was so fine, so delicate, and yet so
full of summer and the free unfettered life of the New World, so
unimpassioned physically, yet so passionate in mind and temperament,
that he felt he must atone for the wild moment's passion--the passion
of possession, which had made him long to crush her to his breast. There
was nothing physically repulsive in it; it was the wild, strong life of
conquering man, of which he had due share. For, as he looked at her
sitting in his office, her perfect health, her slim boyishness, her
exquisite lines and graceful turn of hand, arm and body, or the flower-
like turn of the neck, were the very harmony and poetry of life. But she
was terribly provoking too; and he realized that she was an unconscious
coquette, that her spirit loved mastery as his did.
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