Joyce of the North Woods | Page 5

into St. Angé.
But the song was not dead. Again and again a man or woman would
revive it and so it had become a part of the place. To Jude, now, it was
painfully evident as he again plunged forward; it followed him sweetly,
mockingly as it used to when Lola sent it after him to keep him from
being afraid as he left her for his lonely home; he, a neglected little
boy.
And now here was Joyce! With a stinging consciousness Jude realized
this new personality that heretofore he had not suspected. Even as
jealous anger spurred him on, a vague something he knew awaited him,
calmed him and made him cautious.
While he longed to grip and command the situation, he was aware of a
power in Joyce--a power he had unconsciously, perhaps, sensed
before--that bade him stand afar until she beckoned him.
As he neared her little house, before even he saw the lights, he heard a
song. It was that song! It met the rhythm in his own heated fancy--he
and Joyce seemed to be singing it together:
Alouette, Alouette.
The light was streaming through open window and door. Inside Joyce
was preparing the evening meal, stepping lightly between table and
stove as she sang. Jude dared not enter unannounced, and his pride held
him silent.

What was he afraid of? Was he not he, and Joyce but a girl? Still he
kept his distance.
"Joyce!" The song within ceased, and the singer stepped to the open
doorway.
"That you, father?" No answer came. "Father?"
Then Jude came into the light.
"You, Jude? Come in; father's late. I never wait for him and I am as
hungry as a wolf."
Joyce had been one of the few girls who had gone to the Hillcrest
school as long as paternal authority permitted, and she showed her
training.
"I ain't come for no friendly call," muttered Jude, slouching in and
dropping on to a wooden chair beside the table.
Joyce turned and looked at him, and the glow from the hanging lamp
fell upon her.
She was tall and slim, almost to leanness, but there were no awkward
angles and she was as graceful as a fawn.
Her skin was pale, clear and smooth, her eyes wide apart and so dark as
to be colourless, but of a wondrous softness. Her hair was of that shade
of gold that suggests silver, and in its curves, where the sun had not
bleached it, it was full of tints and tones.
"What have you come for?" she asked, as a child might have asked it,
wonderingly and interestedly.
"I want to ask you something, and I want the truth."
"Oh!" Joyce sat opposite, and let her clasped hands fall upon the table
laid out for the evening meal with the brown bowl of early asters set in
the centre. She forgot her hunger, and the steaming pot on the stove

bubbled unheeded.
"What you want to know, Jude? You look mighty upset."
Jude saw with his new, keen vision that she was startled and was
sparring for time. "It's about," he leaned forward, "it's about you
and--and him. I saw you in the Long Medder. I saw him hold your
hands and--and kiss you." The words smarted the dry, hot lips. "I--I
want to know what it means."
Jude was trembling visibly as he finished, but Joyce's silence, her
apparent discomfort, gave him a kind of assurance that upheld him in
his position.
The girl across the table had been awakened several weeks ago in
Gaston's little shack among the pines. Since then she had been living
vividly and fervently. The question with her, now, was how best to
voice herself--the self that Jude in no wise knew. Womanlike, she did
not want to plunge into what might prove an abyss. She wanted to take
her own way, but with a half-unconscious coquetry she desired to drag
her captives whither she went.
In the old stupid life before her womanhood was roused, Jude had held
no mean part in her girlish dreams. He was the best of the St. Angé
boyhood and Joyce had an instinctive relish for the best wherever she
saw it. Whatever the future held she was not inclined to thrust Jude
from it. In success or failure she would rather have him with her than
against her. Not that she feared him--she had boundless belief in
herself--but, hearts to the woman, scalps to the savage, are trophies not
to be despised.
"I--I want to know what it means." Again Jude spoke, and this time a
tone of command rang through the words.
The corners of Joyce's mouth twitched--she had a wonderfully
expressive mouth. Suddenly she raised her eyes. They did not hold the
expression Jude might