“He went to Oregon. There was no answer to my last letter; I’ve lost sight of him.”
“And you go about with Mrs. Marvin? Is her husband alive?”
Sudden anger flared up in the girl’s blue eyes, though, he knew it was not directed against him.
“Yes,” she said. “It’s a pity he is. Men of his kind always seem to live.”
It occurred to Vane, that Miss Blake, who had evidently a spice of temper, could be a staunch partisan; and he also noticed that now he had inspired her with some degree of trust in himself, her conversation was marked by an ingenious candour. For all that, she changed the subject.
“Another piece, or some tea?” she asked.
“Tea first,” said Vane, and they both laughed when she afterwards handed him a double slice of bread.
“These sandwiches strike me as unusually nice,” he informed her. “It’s exceptionally good tea, too.”
The blue eyes gleamed with amusement, “You have been in the cold all night—but I was once in a restaurant.” She watched the effect of this statement on him. “You know I really can’t sing—I was never taught, anyway, though there were some of the settlements where we did rather well.”
Vane hummed a few bars of a song. “I don’t suppose you realise what one ballad of yours has done. I’d almost forgotten the Old Country, but the night I heard you I felt I must go back and see it again. What’s more, Carroll and I are going shortly; it’s your doing.”