"Who was he?"
"A logger who worked for us. Clever chap. Thought his own thoughts about things, which isn't characteristic of loggers—or men in general, I'm beginning to believe. By the way, your father and mother are looking uncommonly well. But it struck me that the governor had aged a lot. Notice it? Did it knock him all of a heap when Phil went West?"
"No, he was rather quiet and sad for awhile, but with the casualties running so high we'd all schooled ourselves to expect bad news of you both any time," Mary said quietly. "Something has worried him lately. He's here a good bit. Takes Roddy out for a walk or drive nearly every day. He's well, I think, but lately he's been moody."
"See anything of Laska?"
She shook her head.
"Very little. I don't see a great deal of people, Rod. Every one has been lovely to me. But—I don't fit into the giddy pace. You know, if you don't flutter prettily and with all your heart, you don't make a hit with the butterflies. Since I came back from London I've—I've just put in the time. You know—oh, we're a pair of softies—but it is good to be together. We have played the game."
A Chinese boy brought in tea and cakes. Rod and Mary toasted their feet at the blaze and sipped tea and talked. The windows that gave seaward over English Bay shivered in their casings under the gusty puffs of the storm wind. A chime struck ten.
"Is there a bedroom upstairs?" Rod roused himself out of a silence to ask.
"Two. But neither is completely furnished. There are two nice ones on the ground floor, which is plenty for us so long as we have no guests. Why?"
"I would much rather sleep upstairs."