"He's the cutest man in U.S.," she said, staring him straight in the face without sign of recognition. "But he's real lazy. He saw me making custard at Grandpa Quiller's this morning, and he wasn't even smart enough to lift the saucepan off the fire. I thought he might have had spunk enough for that, anyway."
Twenty-four hours earlier Merefleet would have deliberately hunched his shoulders, turned his back, and read his paper. But his education was in sure hands. He had made rapid progress since the day before.
He leant a little towards his critic and said gravely:
"Pray accept my apologies for the omission! To tell you the truth, I was not watching the progress of the cookery."
The girl nodded as if appeased.
"You can come and sit at this table," she said, indicating a chair opposite to her. "I guess you know my cousin Bert Seton."
"What makes you guess that?" Merefleet inquired, changing his seat as directed.
She looked at him with a little smile of superior knowledge. "I guess lots," she said, but proffered no explanation of her shrewd conclusion.
Young Seton greeted Merefleet with less cordiality than he had displayed on the previous evening. There was a suggestion of caution in his manner that created a somewhat unfavourable impression in Merefleet's mind.
Already he was beginning to wonder how these two came to be thus isolated in the forgotten little town of Old Silverstrand. It was not a natural state of affairs. Neither the girl with her marvellous beauty, nor the man with his peculiar concentration of purpose, was a fitting figure for such a background. They were out of place—most noticeably so.