Unimaginative, crude, direct, his fancy, nevertheless, placed her before him, steeped in sunshine, saturated with glorious light, brilliant, radiant, alluring.

He saw the sweet simplicity of her carriage, the statuesque evenness of the contours of her figure, the single, deep swell of her bosom, the solid masses of her hair.

He remembered the small contradictory suggestions of feminine daintiness he had so often remarked about her, her slim, narrow feet, the little steel buckles of her low shoes, the knot of black ribbon she had begun to wear of late on the back of her head, and he heard her voice, low-pitched, velvety, a sweet, murmuring huskiness that seemed to come more from her chest than from her throat.
The buckskin's hoofs clattered upon the gravelly flats of Broderson's Creek underneath the Long Trestle.

Annixter's mind went back to the scene of the previous evening, when he had come upon her at this place.
He set his teeth with anger and disappointment.

Why had she not been able to understand?
What was the matter with these women, always set upon this marrying notion?
Was it not enough that he wanted her more than any other girl he knew and that she wanted him?
She had said as much.