“I expect you can prove that by looking at me, Miss Harlan—noticing that I’ve got thin and pale-looking since you saw me last?”
She threw a demure glance at him. “I am afraid you are in great danger; you do not look nearly as well as when I saw you, the first time, on the train.”
He looked gravely at her.
“The porter threw them out of the window,” he said. “That is, I gave him orders to.”
“What?” she said, perplexed. “I don’t understand. What did the porter throw out of the window?”
“My dude clothes,” he said.
So he had observed the ridicule in her eyes.
She met his gaze, and both laughed.
He had been curious about her all along, and he artfully questioned her about Westwood, gradually drawing from her the rather unexciting details of her life. Yet these details were chiefly volunteered, Taylor noticed, and did not result entirely from his questions.
Carrington’s name came into the discussion, also, and Parsons. Taylor discovered that Carrington and Parsons had been partners in many business deals, and that they had come to Dawes because the town offered many possibilities. The girl quoted Carrington’s words; Taylor was convinced that she knew nothing of the character of the business the men had come to Dawes to transact.