“You fancy I require one from you?”
Nasmyth looked at her with heavy eyes. “No,” he answered, “it is evident that you don’t. After all, perhaps I shouldn’t have wished to make any excuse. It seems only natural that when I get hurt, or find myself in any trouble, I should come to you.”
He did not see the colour that crept into her face, for his perceptions were not clear then; but he rose with an effort, and together they went back to the house through the snow. There Nasmyth changed his clothes for the dry garments he had brought in a valise strapped to the 250 pack-saddle, and an hour after supper he fell quietly asleep in his chair. Then Laura turned to her father.
“You let him walk all the way when he is worn-out and hurt!” she said accusingly.
Waynefleet waved his hand. “He insisted on it; and I would like to point out that there is nothing very much the matter with him. We have all been working very hard at the cañon; in fact, I quite fail to understand why you should be so much more concerned about him than you evidently are about me. I am, however, quite aware that there would be no use in my showing that I resented it.”
Laura said nothing further. She felt that silence was wiser, for, after all, her patience now and then almost failed her.