"Well, well, now, never mind," he said, in blundering consolation. "You look well in anything. I've often noticed, but I didn't think you cared for compliments. Anyway"—he grasped eagerly at something safe—"anyway, you can't beat that white dress."
She turned to him again, once more the everyday Sheila.
"All right, old boy, we'll let it go at that. Forget it. And now I'll tell you something: I wore this white dress—absolutely the plainest thing I have—because I didn't want to come into a finery contest with Miss Burnaby. And now let's look at the old dog. I'm afraid he'll have to be shot."
Farwell put in an appearance after supper. It was plain that the big engineer had not expected to find other guests; also that their presence embarrassed him. Quite unused to dissembling his feelings, he took no pains to hide his dislike for Dunne. Casey, on the other hand, was polite, suave, quiet, wearing the mocking smile that invariably exasperated the engineer.
"You and Mr. Farwell are not friends," Clyde ventured on the way home.
"He doesn't think much of me," Casey admitted. "I rub him the wrong way."
"As you were doing to-night."
"Was I?"
"You know you were. Is there a private quarrel between you, apart from the water matter?"
"Not exactly. But it would come to that if we saw much of each other."