“All right,” he said. “Any news? What’s been going on at the camp? By the way, I see that you’ve got a stranger; I met a young fellow limping along the road—a good-looking young fellow. Who is he?”
Esmeralda poured out some whisky and water and set it before him before replying, and so gained time to control her voice, and answer with an assumption of indifference which the most innocent of Eve’s daughters find so easy.
“Oh, he’s a young fellow that came on here from Dog’s Ear; his name’s Norman Druce; he’s a lord!”
“Oh!” said Varley Howard. He spoke with an absence of mind and interest that would have disappeared if he had seen her face, which, for a moment, had grown crimson. She still kept behind him, and occupied herself in washing up the plates and dishes at a side table, but she glanced at him now and again as if she were tempted to take him into her confidence, and once she opened her lips as if about to speak, but before she could begin, the noise of shouting rose from the camp below, and Varley Howard got up and went to the door.
“It’s Bill the postman,” he said.
She followed him and leaned her elbow on his shoulder.
“There’s somebody with him,” she said, shading her eyes, and looking at two horsemen, who had pulled up in the center of the camp, and were surrounded by the crowd of miners. She and Varley watched Bill distribute the letters from his leather wallet, then she said:
“He’s bringing the stranger up here.”
“So he is,” said Varley Howard. “I wonder who he is? Looks like a town man, and rides like a tailor.”
“Perhaps he’s the bank agent,” said Esmeralda.