“Well, she’s very pretty and charming. If I were a young man I’d fall in love with her. It wouldn’t surprise me a bit to see you smitten.”
Joe reddened a trifle, conscious that while he had been talking to Jack his eyes had been on Miss Garwood. Once or twice her glance had met his and she had given him a friendly smile. It seemed to hint at an understanding between them—as if she would have been very glad to have him change places with one of the others. And yet it was absolutely frank and open.
Kent, being an average young man, did not analyze the quality of it. He merely felt that he liked Edith Garwood, and she probably did not dislike him. At the same time he began to feel a slight aversion to the four men who monopolized her; but he explained this to himself quite honestly on the ground that it was boorish of them to neglect Jack Crooks for a guest, no matter how charming the latter might be. His reply to Jack’s prediction was interrupted by William Crooks.
“Well, young people,” said the old lumberman, emerging upon the veranda, “why don’t you come into the house and have some music?”
“It’s cooler out here, dad,” said Jack. “Sit down and make yourself at home and have a smoke. Here’s Joe.”
Crooks laid a huge hand on Kent’s shoulder. “I want to talk over some business with you, Joe. You won’t mind if I take him away for half an hour, Jack?”
“Not a bit, dad. Don’t keep him all night, though.”
“I won’t,” he promised, smiling at her fondly. “Come on, Joe. We’ll go to the library.”
William Crooks’s library held few books. Such as there were mainly dealt with the breeding, training, and diseases of horses and dogs. Stuffed birds and fish, guns and rods adorned the walls. A huge table in the centre of the room bore a mass of papers in which pipes, cartridge cases, trout flies, and samples of various woods mingled in gorgeous confusion. Crooks laid an open box of cigars on top of the disarray.
“Well, Joe,” he asked, “how you makin’ it?”