“Anyway, that wasn’t why I gave it up. I was turned out. Fired, they call it in this country.”
Ida for a moment was almost angry with him. She felt, simply because he had said it, that this must be correct as far as it went, but she was equally sure that he could have gone a good deal further. She was, of course, aware that there were a good many men in Canada whose absence from the old country was not regretted by their friends, and she was a little hurt that he did not seem to shrink from the possibility of her setting him down as one of them. She could not know that he was in a very bitter mood just then.
“Well,” she said, “as you say, it is not likely that I shall have any occasion to mention you, and I certainly won’t do it casually. You must, however, be content with that.”
“Yes,” said Weston. “After all, it really doesn’t matter very much anyway.”
Ida let the matter drop, for she had something else to say, and it had been in her mind rather often lately.
“When we leave here you will be without an occupation, won’t you?” she asked; and then proceeded somewhat hastily without waiting for him to answer. “Now, you have done a good deal to make the time pass pleasantly both here and in British Columbia.”
“It did pass pleasantly?”
The question was suggestively abrupt, and Ida saw that, as happened now and then, the man was for the moment off his guard. This, however, did not displease her.
“Of course,” she said. “For that matter it couldn’t have been very burdensome to you.”