Alton, who dared not look at her, now bent his head. "You are very kind—still, it can't be helped," he said. "I think Mrs. Forel is coming back for you. Somebody is going to sing."
Their hostess approached the doorway, and Alice Deringham found words fail her as she watched the man, though she knew that the silence was horribly eloquent. It was Alton who broke it.
"You had better go in. I"—and he smiled bitterly—"will wait until the music commences and they cannot notice me."
The girl could stay no longer, though at last words which would have made a difference to both of them rose to her lips, but Alton waited until he could slip into the room unnoticed, and heard very little of the music. During it Mrs. Forel managed to secure a few words with Thorne.
"You seem to have made friends with rancher Alton," she said.
Thorne smiled a little. "Yes," he said. "Of course I know little about him, but I think that is a man one could trust."
The lady nodded, for he had given her an opportunity. "You know more about his partner?"
Thorne's manner appeared to change a trifle, which Mrs. Forel of course noticed. "Yes," he said.
The lady thoughtfully smoothed out a fold of her dress. "Well," she said with Western frankness, "I want to know a little about him, too."
Thorne smiled as he saw there was no evading the issue. "So I surmised from what your husband asked me. Seaforth was considered a young man of promise when I knew him in England, and his family is unexceptional. His father, however, lost a good deal of money, which presumably accounts for Charley having turned Canadian rancher."