"Marvelously," Mordaunt interposed. "If my opinion is worth much, you look as if you belonged to Langrigg. That is, you go back, beyond our times, to the folks who built the peel to keep out the Scots."
Jim nodded. Mordaunt had said what he himself had vaguely thought. The fellow was sensitive and had felt the girl's virility. Jim was a little surprised that Carrie, who knew nothing about the Border wars, seemed to understand, for she gave Mordaunt a quiet but rather piercing look.
"Well," she said. "I have been up against Nature, where she's raw and savage, in the woods."
"Perhaps that accounts for it," Mordaunt replied, smiling. "Nature is savage in the frozen North; perhaps Jim told you I have been there. But I imagine you made good."
"Jim made good. I like to think I helped."
"I expect your help was worth much!" said Mordaunt.
Carrie's glance rested on him calmly and he felt that she needed study. She did not speak, however, and Mrs. Halliday and the others came in. After a few minutes they went to the paneled dining-room and Jim forgot Carrie when he sat down by Evelyn. Her color was subdued, her skin, for the most part, ivory white, and she had black eyes and hair. Although rather tall, she looked fragile, but she was marked by a fastidious grace and calm that Jim thought patrician. This was not the word he wanted, but he did not know another.
"It's curious, but I seem to know you," she said, presently.
"I don't think it is very curious," Jim replied. "You see, I met you at the restaurant near the post-office in Montreal."
"Yes," said Evelyn, with a puzzled look, "I remember our going there, but we didn't talk to anybody."