"Yes, ma'am"—evidently surprised.
He saw her bag, looked at her face again, took off his hat shyly and opened a ruled copybook to which a pencil was attached by a length of grimy cotton twine. He pushed it toward her, and the woman, as she drew off her glove, saw that this was the hotel register.
In a bold, large hand she wrote:
"Ann Lytton, Portland, Maine."
"I'd like a room for to-night," she said, "and to-morrow I'd like to get to the Sunset mine. Can you direct me?"
A faint suggestion of anxiety was in her query and on the question the youth looked at her sharply, met her gaze and let his waver off. He turned to put the register on the shelf behind him.
"Why, I can find out," he answered, evasively. "It's over thirty miles out there and th' road ain't so very good yet. You can get th' automobile to take you. It's out now—took the doctor out this afternoon—and won't be back till late, prob'ly."
He took the register from the shelf again and, on pretext of noting her room number on the margin of the leaf, re-read her name and address, moving his lips in the soundless syllables.
"I'd ... I'd like to go to my room, if I may," the woman said, and, picking up one of the two lighted lamps, the other led her into the hall and up the narrow flight of stairs.
Ten minutes later, the young man stood in the hotel kitchen, the house register in his hands. Over his right shoulder the waitress peered and over his left, the cook breathed heavily, as became her weight.