"How well you put it!" Treadwell's face grew serious. He recalled his hour of confession in Sandy's study and felt an honest glow of appreciation.
"When I was a right little girl," Cynthia went on, "I lived up at Stoneledge with Aunt Ann; she was my real aunt. I had a mighty queer life for a little girl and I reckon I would have fared mighty bad if I hadn't had a secret life!"
"You bad child!" Treadwell cried, shaking his finger at her; "a double life, eh?"
"Yes." The sweet smile gave Lans a bad moment. "Yes. In that-er-life I had all the things I wanted; all the folks I liked, and it just kept me—going! Sometimes I wish, oh! how I wish, that Sandy had a nice little other life, free of work and worry and loneliness, where he could—let go! Sandy does hold on so!"
"I wish I could have been in your 'other life'," Lans whispered.
"Oh! real folks never got there!"
"Well, if it will comfort you any," Treadwell broke in with an uncomfortable sense of being an off-mountaineer, "Sandy has—another life."
"Really?" Cynthia flushed and curiosity swayed her. She had never had so good an opportunity to know the man Sandy; she might never have again. "Really? and folks, right magic folks to—to play with?"
Treadwell thought of the Markhams and grinned; then he thought of Sandy's secret relations with the girl his aunt had told him of and he grew imaginative. "Yes. Now there is a man in Sandy's other world, a grim, rather stern man, but he has a magic wand that he lets Sandy wave now and then—it's great fun!"
"Oh! you mean the Company?"