The girls, tripping through the dance, smiled at Ruth as
they passed. They knew her very well, and had seen her so often that
they no longer looked at her as plump brown partridges might look at an
exquisite bird of paradise. And then, they felt that Ruth was
unconscious of any difference between herself and them. There was a
sweet, cordial friendliness about her, an innate warm-hearted, magnetic
charm which won women as well as men. The hunters' daughters liked her
because they knew that she liked them for, after all, most of us get
what we give in our larger relation to humanity--seldom, if ever,
anything else, either more or less. Those who truly love their kind can
never be really hated: those who hate their kind can never be really
loved. The balance may waver one way or the other at times, but it
cannot fail to weigh truly at last.
Ruth danced first with David and then with one of the bashful young
hunters. But all the while she was looking toward the opening in the
undergrowth, expecting to see Paul Colbert. He had said that he would be
there, and presently she saw him standing in the opening between the
trees, with the shining river at his back.
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