"I guess you'll be able to put in the time, all right," he remarked.
"Make yourself at home. If you take a notion to read, there's a lot of
books and magazines in my room. Mrs. Howe'll show you."
He walked out. Stella was conscious of a distinct relief when he was
gone. She had somehow experienced a recurrence of that peculiar feeling
of needing to be on her guard, as if there were some curious, latent
antagonism between them. She puzzled over that a little. She had never
felt that way about Paul Abbey, for instance, or indeed toward any man
she had ever known. Fyfe's more or less ambiguous remark in the boat had
helped to arouse it again. His manner of saying that he had "thought a
lot about her" conveyed more than the mere words. She could quite
conceive of the Jack Fyfe type carrying things with a high hand where a
woman was concerned. He had that reputation in all his other dealings.
He was aggressive. He could drink any logger in the big firs off his
feet. He had an uncanny luck at cards. Somehow or other in every
undertaking Jack Fyfe always came out on top, so the tale ran. There
must be, she reasoned, a wide streak of the brute in such a man. It was
no gratification to her vanity to have him admire her. It did not dawn
upon her that so far she had never got over being a little afraid of
him, much less to ask herself why she should be afraid of him.
But she did not spend much time puzzling over Jack Fyfe. Once out of her
sight she forgot him.
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