I did so—perhaps not very clearly, for she asked many questions during the course of the narrative; and her eyes sparkled at the story of our profitless struggle in the coulée.
“Flour—poor thirds; whose brand?—local pork—and doubtless the cheapest tea, you lived on. I manage the affairs of the Manor, and may I ask what your grocery list came to? How much maize and oats for the horses? Thank you. It was just as one might have expected. No, I have never been disappointed in either Harry Lorraine or you.”
She dragged the particulars from me—and no one, much less Ralph Lorimer, could refuse to answer Grace Carrington—with a skill that came from practical knowledge 159 of such details, before I even guessed what she wished to arrive at. Then she laughed at my confusion.
“You have no need to blush. Starved yourselves and fed the cattle. It was well done. And didn’t the new partner grumble?”
“No,” I answered, glad to change the subject. “Johnston never grumbled at anything in his life, I think. It was he who managed the commissariat.”
“Do you realize, Mr. Lorimer, that you are in many ways a lucky man?” she added. “I understand perfectly what it means to lose a crop and carry out an unprofitable contract. But it is in reference to your comrades I speak. Fearless, loyal partners are considerably better than the best of gear with half-hearted help, and it is evident that you have them.”
“Yes,” I said. “No man ever had better; and it is quite true what you say. With a loyal partner a man may do very much, and, if he is sure of himself, with a higher mind to show him the way, he might reach out toward the heavens and—”
Here I stopped abruptly. Wild thoughts were crystallizing into words I might not speak, and I grew hot with the struggle to check them, while I fancied that Grace blushed before she turned her face away. I know my brow was furrowed and my fingers trembled, so that it was a relief presently to hear her musical laugh.
“You are not an orator,” she said, turning around calmly; “and perhaps it is as well. It is not orators who are wanted in this country. Your eloquent beginning too suddenly breaks away. But don’t you think we are in the meantime drifting into idle sentiment? And you have asked me neither where I am going nor about Colonel Carrington.”
It was true; the first would have seemed presumptuous 160 and I did not care greatly about the redoubtable Colonel’s health.