"Hullo, here's George!" They shook hands. "I've not seen you for months. What's the weather going to be tomorrow? It's starlight tonight."
"It'll be fine, I think."
"That's good. Helen, you've hidden my slippers again, and I told you not to. What a fiend for tidiness you are!"
"I couldn't leave them in the dust." She was half enjoying her self-consciousness. "They're in the cupboard."
"Find them, there's a dear."
She brought the slippers and went back to her chair. The three men seemed to fill the kitchen. John was silent and, leaning against the table, he filled his pipe and looked up sometimes as the others talked. Rupert, slim against Halkett's bulk, alert and straight, was thinking faster than he spoke, and while he reminded George of this and that, how they had gone ratting once together, how George had let him try a colt that he was breaking, Helen knew there were subtle questions in his brain, but if George suspected them, he gave no sign. He was at his ease, for with men he had neither diffidence nor surliness, and Helen remembered that she had hardly seen him except in the presence of Miriam or herself, two women who, in different ways, had teased him into sulkiness.
Her heart lightened and, when he chanced to look at her, she smiled again. A few seconds later, Rupert followed Helen's glance and learnt what had caused the slight confusion of George's speech. She was looking at him with an absorbed and hopeful interest. She was like a child attracted by some new and changeful thing, and her beauty had an animation it often lacked.
"Can't we all sit down?" Rupert said. He promised himself a pleasant evening of speculation.
John handed his tobacco pouch to George and, having exchanged a few remarks about the frost, the snow, the lambing season, they seemed to consider that courtesy's demands had been fulfilled; but Rupert talked to hide the curiosity which could have little satisfaction until Halkett took his leave.
When he rose to go, he stood before Helen's chair and looked down at her. He was so near that she had to throw back her head before she could see his face.