“Sure you intend to give me my dinner?” he quizzed, his lips' lifting humorously at the corners. “I kinda thought, from the way you turned me down cold when we met before, you'd shut your door in my face if I came pestering around. How about that?”
Little flames of light nickered in her eyes. “You are the guest of my husband, here by his invitation,” she answered him coldly. “Of course I shall give you your dinner, if you want any.”
He inspected his handkerchief critically, decided that it was not quite clean, and held it again under the stream of water. “If I want it—yes,” he drawled maliciously. “Maybe I'm not sure about that part. Are you a pretty fair cook?”
“Perhaps you'd better interview your friends,” she retorted, “if you are so very fastidious. I—” She drew her brows together, as if she was in doubt as to the proper method of dealing with this impertinence. She suspected that he was teasing her purposely, but still—
“Oh, I can eat 'most any old thing,” he assured her, with calm effrontery. “You look as if you'd learn easy, and Man ain't the worst cook I ever ate after. If he's trained you faithful, maybe it'll be safe to take a change. How about that? Can you make sour-dough bread yet?”
“No!” she flung the word at him. “And I don't want to learn,” she added, at the expense of her dignity.
Kent shook his head disapprovingly. “That sure ain't the proper spirit to show,” he commented. “Man must have to beat you up a good deal, if you talk back to him that way.” He eyed her sidelong. “You're a real little wolf, aren't you?” He shook his head again solemnly, and sighed. “A fellow sure must build himself lots of trouble when he annexes a wife—a wife that won't learn to make sour-dough bread, and that talks back. I'm plumb sorry for Man. We used to be pretty good friends—” He stopped short, his face contrite.
Val was looking away, and she was winking very fast. Also, her lips were quivering unmistakably, though she was biting them to keep them steady.
Kent stared at her helplessly. “Say! I never thought you'd mind a little joshing,” he said gently, when the silence was growing awkward. “I ought to be killed! You—you must get awful lonesome—”
She turned her face toward him quickly, as if he were the first person who had understood her blank loneliness. “That,” she told him, in an odd, hesitating manner, “atones for the—the 'joshing.' No one seems to realize—”