Stella
was no fool. She knew that she was attractive, and she knew why. She had
been prepared to repulse, and there had been nothing to repulse. Once
during Charlie's absence he had come in a rowboat, hailed her from the
beach, and gone away without disembarking when she told him Benton was
not back. He was something of an enigma, she confessed to herself, after
all. Perhaps that was why he came so frequently into her mind. Or
perhaps, she told herself, there was so little on Roaring Lake to think
about that one could not escape the personal element. As if any one ever
could. As if life were made up of anything but the impinging of one
personality upon another. That was something Miss Stella Benton had yet
to learn. She was still mired in the rampant egotism of untried youth,
as yet the sublime individualist.
That side of her suffered a distinct shock later in the evening. When
supper was over, the work done, and the loggers' celebration was slowly
subsiding in the bunkhouse, she told Charlie with blunt directness what
she wanted to do. With equally blunt directness he declared that he
would not permit it. Stella's teeth came together with an angry little
click.
"I'm of age, Charlie," she said to him. "It isn't for you to say what
you will or will not _permit_ me to do. I want that money of mine that
you used--and what I've earned. God knows I _have_ earned it. I can't
stand this work, and I don't intend to. It isn't work; it's slavery."
"But what can you do in town?" he countered.
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