"Why odd?" the girl questioned, taking off her hat and arranging her curls before a mirror.
"Why, that I should have happened to strike the right moment! Had I come here yesterday it would have been useless. As I said, you hypnotized me. Evidently fate intended us to meet."
"Do you believe in fate?" the girl asked, shrugging her shoulders. "I believe in nothing—least of all in men!"
"You say so!" Kelson observed, before he knew what he was saying. "And yet you have just got engaged to one. But you've got a bad attack of the pip this morning, you have had enough of it here—you want to get another post."
The girl ceased doing her hair and eyed him in amazement. "Well!" she said. "Of all the queer men I've ever met you are the queerest. Are you a seer?"
"No!" Hamar observed, suddenly joining in. "He's only very hungry, miss. Hungry body and soul! hungry all over. And so are we."
"Well, then, go into the room over there," the girl cried, pointing in the direction of a half-open door, "and breakfast will be brought you in half a jiffy."
"Who's that playing cards?" Curtis asked.
"How do you know any one is playing cards?" the girl queried with an incredulous stare. "You can't see through walls, can you?"
"No! and I'm hanged if I can explain," Curtis said, "I seem to hear them. There are two—one is called Arnold, and the other Lemon, or some such name, and they are rehearsing certain card tricks they mean to play to-night."