She poured coffee until all the cups were full, replenished the bread plate and brought more butter, and hunted the kitchen over for the can opener, to punch little holes in another can of condensed cream; and she rather astonished her guests by serving it in a beautiful cut-glass pitcher instead of the can in which it was bought.
They handled the pitcher awkwardly because of their mental uneasiness, and Val shared with them their fear of breaking it, and was guilty of an audible sigh of relief when at last it found safety upon the table.
So perturbed was she that even when she decided that she could do no more for their comfort and retreated to the kitchen, she failed to realize that the one extra plate meant an absent guest, and not a miscount in placing them, as she fancied.
She remembered that she would need plenty of hot water to wash all those dishes, and the zinc pail was empty; it always was, it seemed to her, no matter how often she filed it. She took the tin dipper out of it, so that it would not rattle and betray her purpose to Manley, sitting just inside the door with his back toward her, and tiptoed quite guiltily out of the kitchen. Once well away from the shack, she ran.
She reached the spring quite out of breath, and she actually bumped into a man who stood carefully rinsing a bloodstained handkerchief under the overflow from the horse trough. She gave a little scream, and the pail went rolling noisily down the steep bank and lay on its side in the mud.
Kent turned and looked at her, himself rather startled by the unexpected collision. Involuntarily he threw out his hand to steady her. “How do you do, Mrs. Fleetwood?” he said, with all the composure he could muster to his aid. “I'm afraid I scared you. My nose got to bleeding—with the heat, I guess. I just now managed to stop it.” He did not consider it necessary to explain his presence, but he did feel that talking would help her recover her breath and her color. “It's a plumb nuisance to have the nosebleed so much,” he added plaintively.
Val was still trembling and staring at him with her odd, yellow-brown eyes. He glanced at her swiftly, and then bent to squeeze the water from his handkerchief; but his trained eyes saw her in all her dainty allurement; saw how the coppery sunlight gave a strange glint to her hair, and how her eyes almost matched it in color, and how the pupils had widened with fright. He saw, too, something wistful in her face, as though life was none too kind to her, and she had not yet abandoned her first sensation of pained surprise that it should treat her so.
“That's what I get for running,” she said, still panting a little as she watched him. “I thought all the men were at the table, you see. Your dinner will be cold, Mr. Burnett.”
Kent was a bit surprised at the absence of cold hauteur in her manner; his memory of her had been so different.
“Well, I'm used to cold grub,” he smiled over his shoulder. “And, anyway, when your nose gets to acting up with you, it's like riding a pitching horse; you've got to pass up everything and give it all your time and attention.” Then, with the daring that sometimes possessed him like a devil, he looked straight at her.