Evelyn was dressed in the latest summer fashion, and the thin, light clothes became her. The keen mountain breezes had given her a fine color, and she looked very fresh and young by contrast with the jaded business man at her side. Cliffe wore an old gray suit that Evelyn had never seen and shabby leggings. A creel hung round his shoulders, and he carried a fishing-rod. His face was lined and pale, but when they left the garden and entered the woods Evelyn was surprised to note that his thin figure harmonized with the scattered boulders and the ragged pines. To some extent, this might be accounted for by the neutral tint of his clothes, but he somehow looked at home in the wilderness. Though he had once or twice gone off with an old friend on a shooting trip, she had never thought of her father as a sport.
"It is curious that you make me feel you belong to the bush," she said.
"I used to go fishing when I was a boy," Cliffe replied with a deprecatory smile. "I've never had much time for it since; but there's nothing I'm fonder of."
Evelyn found something pathetic in his answer. He had very few opportunities for indulging in the pastimes he liked, and now he was going out to fish with a keen eagerness that showed how scarce such pleasures were. His enjoyment was essentially natural; her friends' enthusiasm for the amusements Mrs. Willans got up was artificial and forced. They had too much, and her father not enough.
"I hope the trout will rise well," she said. "We were surprised to hear that you were coming down."
"I found I could get away for the week-end. Have you been having a good time?"
"Yes, in a way. I have everything I ought to like; something amusing to do from morning to night, the kind of people I've been used to about me, and Aunt Margaret sees that nobody is dull."
She had had more than she mentioned, for Gore was staying at Banner's Post, and had devoted himself to her entertainment with a frank assiduity that had roused the envy of other guests. Evelyn admitted feeling flattered, for Gore had many advantages, and his marked preference had given her an importance she had not always enjoyed.
"And yet you're not quite satisfied?" Cliffe suggested with a shrewd glance.
"Perhaps I'm not, but I don't know. Is one ever satisfied?"