“Yes.”
He had dropped his head again, as if he did not want to look at them.
To Josephine, the pale, impassive, blank-seeming face, the blue eyes with the smile which wasn't a smile, and the continual dropping of the well-shaped head was curiously affecting. She wanted to cry.
“Are you a miner?” Robert asked, de haute en bas.
“No,” cried Josephine. She had looked at his hands.
“Men's checkweighman,” replied Aaron. He had emptied his glass. He put it on the table.
“Have another?” said Jim, who was attending fixedly, with curious absorption, to the stranger.
“No,” cried Josephine, “no more.”
Aaron looked at Jim, then at her, and smiled slowly, with remote bitterness. Then he lowered his head again. His hands were loosely clasped between his knees.
“What about the wife?” said Robert—the young lieutenant.