"Isn't it superb, Alice?" ventured Thayor.
"Yes—Sam—but lonely."
In the twilight the great brook boiled below them.
"It ain't so lonely," remarked Holcomb pleasantly, turning to Mrs. Thayor, "when the sun is shining." He had dropped into his native dialect, which now and then cropped out in his speech.
"I suppose it ain't," said Alice in a whisper to Margaret. The girl touched her mother's arm pleadingly.
"Please don't," she said; "he might hear you. It really isn't kind in you, mother. You know they speak so differently in the country."
Holcomb had heard it, but not a muscle twitched in resentment. He tightened the reins, and for a mile drove in silence.
"And this is the man your father lunched with at The Players," continued Alice under her breath.
Margaret did not reply.
Presently they came out into the valley at the head of the Deadwater, still as ink, reflecting the barkless trees it had killed so clearly that it was difficult to see the point of immersion. Then the plain gabled roof of Morrison's came into view above a flat of young poplars, the silver leaves shivering in the breeze.