The girl was quick to notice that his gaze was not quite frank, and he winced when for a moment she laid her hand upon his arm, for he saw the veiled anxiety in her eyes.
“Something has been going on,” she said. “You don’t want to tell me where Mr. Nasmyth is.”
“He has just gone back to the dam. He got hurt––a trifling cut––nothing more than that. Still, I insisted on tying it up.”
“Ah,” cried Laura sharply, “you evidently don’t wish me to know how he got it!”
“It is just what I don’t mean to do. Any way, it’s not worth while troubling about. Nasmyth’s injury isn’t in the least serious.”
“It doesn’t seem to strike you that I could ask him myself.”
Gordon would have liked to warn her to keep away from the dam, but he did not see how it could be done unless he offered some reason, and that was a thing he shrank from.
“Oh, yes,” he said, “you certainly could.” Then he glanced down at her hands. “Those are unusually pretty gloves you have on.”
His answer was, as it happened, almost as injudicious as he could have rendered it, since it left the girl determined 86 to sift the matter thoroughly. She, however, only smiled just then.
“I think there isn’t a nicer pair of gloves in Canada than these,” she said.