It was a delicate compliment, uttered in all sincerity, and Vane’s worn face grew warm. He was, however, conscious that it would be safer to avoid being serious, and he smiled.
“Well,” he said, “looking for timber rights is apt to prove expensive, too. I had a haunting fear I might be lame, until the doctor banished it. I’d better own that I’d no great confidence in Carroll’s surgery.”
Carroll, keeping strictly to the line the others had chosen, made him an ironical bow, but Evelyn was not to be deterred.
“It was foolish of you to be troubled,” she declared. “It isn’t a fault to be wounded in an honourable fight, and even if the mark remains there is no reason why one should be ashamed of it.”
Mrs. Nairn glanced at the girl rather sharply, but Carroll came to his comrade’s assistance.
“Strictly speaking, there wasn’t a wound,” he pointed out. “Fortunately it was what is known as a simple fracture. If it had been anything else, I’m inclined to think I couldn’t have treated it.”
Nairn chuckled, as if this met with his approval, but his wife turned round and they heard a patter of footsteps on the stairs.
“Yon bell has kept on ringing since we came up,” she said. “I left word I was no to be disturbed. Weel”—as the door opened—“what is it, Minnie?”
“The reception-room’s plumb full,” announced the maid, who was lately from the bush. “If any more folks come along, I won’t know where to put them.”
Now the door was open, Evelyn could hear a murmur of voices on the floor below, and next moment the bell rang violently again, which struck her as a testimonial to the injured man. Vane had not spent a long time in Vancouver, but he had the gift of making friends. Having heard of the sloop’s arrival, they had come to inquire for him, and there was obviously a number of them.