“No. But you’re very kind to me.”
“I’ll get the chores done,” he replied uncomfortably, and this time departed in good earnest to the barn.
When he had fed and watered the stock, finding a relief in the familiar routine, he removed his purchases from the car. Saw where the woman had crouched on the floor. The rubber blanket which he had thrown in at the wharf must have fallen across her back; the heavy sack of feed might well have crushed her. “Lucky she wa’n’t worse hurt,” he told himself. He was full of speculations, full of questions, half dazed with wonder. Women of such a sort as this were as though they lived in another world. Yet she was in his kitchen now.
It was necessary for him to go back to the house to get the milking pails. Again he knocked upon the door, and the woman bade him come in. She had laid aside the oilskins; he was not able at once to understand just what it was she wore. A dress, but of a sort unfamiliar to his eyes. He had seen magazine pictures of such things. An evening gown, décolletté. Her hair was loose in a warm cloud about her smooth shoulders, and she was leaning above the stove.
“I’m sorry,” she apologized, flushing with some confusion. “I’m trying to get it dry.”
He would have backed out of the kitchen. “I’m not in a hurry, ma’am.”
But she cried warmly, “No, no, it’s all right. Come in.”
“I come to get the milk pails,” he explained. “I scalded them out this morning.” He took them from the draining board at one end of the sink. “I’ll go milk now.”
She asked diffidently, “Can’t I be starting supper while you’re doing that?”
Jeff smiled faintly. “I’m used to cooking. I know where the things are.”