"I think you are right," admitted Louise, "but it is strange it should have taken you hardly twenty-four hours to find it, while I have been months getting within speaking distance."
"I suppose," said Alice thoughtfully, "it's a way I have of wanting to utilize the material at hand. There's something, too, in meeting a man on his own ground. When you want to reach a sailor," and she laughed softly, "take a boat. Oh, Mason," she called, for he had made the turn up the branch walk to the house, "wait. Come around and weigh the salmon at the store."
She led the way, and the gloomy building seemed to gather a sudden radiance when she entered the door. Her face reflected a soft illumination from the showy pink flowers heaped in her arm. Forrest stepped down from his stool at the desk, and came outside the railing to meet her. Then, "What's that, Mason?" he asked. "You don't mean to tell me she really did catch a fish."
"Aye, sir,"—Mason stopped to put the salmon on the scales,—"twenty-two pund."
"That's so," said Forrest incredulously, "twenty-two and a quarter; well, for a Chinook that's a prize."
But the smile in her face died. Looking across the rhododendrons at him, it came over her again, as it had when she met him on her arrival the previous day, that he was losing his boyish color; that he was harassed and worn. "Don't you ever go fishing, Paul? Or cruising, or anywhere?"
He shook his head, smiling a little. "Hardly, this year. It's impossible to get away."
Little Silas, tugging at his mother's hand, drew her to the door. But Alice lingered. "Can't Phil Kingsley manage these mills yet, for even one day?"
He glanced in warning at Louise. "It takes us both," he answered quietly. "This milling business is pretty big; it reaches out; and he tends to the other end. But I'm all right. I like to work; I'm used to it. And I need it, lots of it, to keep me level-headed."
"You are that, but shall I tell you what I think, Paul Forrest? I think it's making you old, fast; or else, you are not well."