Jessy was pleased with his answer. She had heard of the free hospitality of the bush choppers, and she thought it was a graceful thing that he should acknowledge his debt to them. She was also pleased that she could lead him on to talk unreservedly.
"Now at last you'll be content to rest a while," she suggested. "I dare say you deserve it."
"It's strange that you should say that, because just before you came out of the house I was thinking that I'd sat still long enough. It's a thing that gets monotonous. One must keep going on."
"Take care that you don't walk over a precipice some day when you have left all the fences behind. But I've kept you from your meditations, and I had better see if Mrs. Nairn is coming."
He was sitting alone, lighting a cigar, when he noticed a girl whose appearance seemed familiar in the road below. Moving along the veranda, he recognized her as Kitty, and hastily crossed the lawn toward her. She was accompanied by a young man whom Vane had once or twice seen in the city, and she greeted him with evident pleasure.
"Tom," she introduced, when they had exchanged a few words, "this is Mr.
Vane." Turning to Vane she added: "Mr. Drayton."
Vane liked the man's face and manner. He shook hands with him, and then looked back at Kitty.
"What are you doing now; and how are little Elsie and her mother?"
Kitty's face clouded.
"Mrs. Marvin's dead. Elsie's with some friends at Spokane, and I think she's well looked after. I've given up the stage. Tom"—she explained shyly—"didn't like it. Now I'm with some people at a ranch near the Fraser, on the Westminster road. There are two or three children, and I'm very fond of them."