When he had gone Mrs. Dan sat down and fanned herself with a weekly paper. “What a man,” she said to herself. “Oh, what a man. He’d drive me mad in a night. I feel as if I’d been slapped and told to mind my own business. And what have I got for it all? She was engaged to Ned Gunliffe—and I could have had that for the asking from any man on Thunder Ridge to-day or, I suppose, anyone in the township in a week. And it’s broken off. I’d have got that from Steve or from her presently, for a hint of a question. I could swear at myself.”
So the attempt to pump Scottie dry failed—possibly because he was dry by nature.
Mrs. Dan had more success with Ess herself when the time came for a confidential chat.
“I believe I have to congratulate you on your engagement,” she said brightly.
“No, oh no,” cried Ess, hotly. “That—that’s over—it’s broken off.”
Mrs. Dan looked at her gravely. “I’m sorry for that,” she said, “the more by reason because Steve is a friend of mine.”
“But it isn’t—nobody knew—I mean I thought everybody knew it was Ned Gunliffe I was engaged to,” said Ess, in confusion.
Mrs. Dan missed nothing of the confusion nor of the flurried words, and before Ess finished speaking had the whole plot of the story clear in her mind. “But it isn’t”—Steve. “Nobody knew”—about the engagement to Steve. So—Steve and she were engaged secretly; they had quarrelled; the girl had immediately become engaged to Ned Gunliffe, and now that was broken off. The conversation she had had with Steve some time before helped her of course to piece the thing together. The next thing to do was to find if Ess were still in love with Steve—she was sure enough he was with her.
So she talked of all the odd things under the sun and dropped Steve’s name casually, and led the conversation round to the rescue from the flood and the part Steve had played in it. And Ess told with sparkling eyes of the struggle of the boat against the current, and her overwhelming joy when it drew in to the tree.
“Ah, and I know Steve would have been just as glad to see you,” said Mrs. Dan.