A few minutes later they paddled ashore, and Vane landed them on a strip of shingle with a wall of rock behind it, to which dark firs clung in the rifts and crannies. The sunshine streamed into the hollow, the wind was cut off, and not far away a crystal stream came splashing down a ravine.
Vane, who had brought an axe, made a fire of resinous wood, and Carroll and Kitty prepared a bountiful supper. After it was finished Carroll carried the plates away to the stream, towards which Mrs. Marvin and the little girl followed him, and Vane and Kitty were left beside the fire. She sat on a log of driftwood, and he lay on the warm shingle with his pipe in his hand. The clear green water splashed and tinkled upon the pebbles close at his feet, and a faint, elfin sighing fell from the firs above them. It was very old music, the song of the primeval wilderness, and though he had heard it often, it had a strange, unsettling effect upon him as he languidly watched his companion. There was no doubt that she was pleasant to look upon; but although he failed to recognise this clearly, it was to a large extent an impersonal interest he took in her. She was not so much an attractive young woman with qualities that pleased him, as a type of something that had so far not come into his life; something which he vaguely felt that he had missed. One could have fancied that by some deep-sunk intuition she surmised this fact, and felt the security of it.
“So you believe you can get an engagement if you reach Vancouver in time,” he said at length. Kitty assented, and he asked, “How long will it last?”
“I can’t tell. Perhaps a few weeks. It depends upon how the boys are pleased with the show.”
“It must be a hard life,” Vane broke out. “You must make very little—scarcely enough, I suppose, to carry you on from one engagement to another. After all, weren’t you as well off at the restaurant? Didn’t they treat you properly?”
She coloured a little at the question. “Oh, yes; at least, I have no fault to find with the man who kept it, or his wife.”
Vane made a hasty sign of comprehension. He supposed that the difficulty had arisen from the conduct of one or more of the regular customers. He felt he would very much like to meet the man whose undesired attentions had driven his companion from her occupation.
“Did you never try to learn keeping accounts or typewriting?” he asked.
“I tried it once, but the mill shut down.”
“I’ve an idea that I could find you a post,” Vane made the suggestion casually, though he was troubled by an inward diffidence.