"I wonder if you remember how astonished you were the first time you brought me supper?"
Celia smiled and Vane turned to the others.
"I'd just come in on a schooner. We'd had wild weather, during which the galley fire was generally washed out and the cook had some difficulty in getting us anything to eat. Miss Hartley brought me a double supply. She must have thought I needed it."
"There was mighty little left," the girl retorted.
The others laughed, but Vane went on, in a reminiscent manner:
"I was wearing a pair of old gum-boots with one toe torn off, and my jacket was split right up the back. When I went up-town the next day, people looked at me suspiciously. The trade of the Province is pretty bad when you see men in Vancouver dressed as I was. The fact that sticks in my mind most clearly, however, is that on the following morning, when I'd arranged to see a man who might give me a job, Miss Hartley offered to sew up the tear for me. I was uncommonly glad to let her."
Celia colored again, but it was evident that she was not displeased.
Kitty smiled at him, and there was appreciation in Drayton's eyes.
"Were you surprised when she offered to sew it?" Kitty inquired.
"Now, you have helped me on to what I wanted to say. I wasn't surprised—how could I be? The kind of people I'd met out here had seldom much money, or much of anything; but I had generally less, and they held out a hand when I needed it and gave me what they had. It stirs me in a way that almost hurts to think of it."
Then Carroll started the general chatter, which went on after the meal was finished, and nobody appeared to notice that Kitty sat with her hand in Drayton's amid the happy laughter. Even Celia, who had her grief to grapple with, smiled bravely. Vane had given them champagne, the best in the city, though they drank sparingly; and at last, when Celia made a move to rise, Drayton stood up with his glass in his hand.