"No. There's no good news yet."
"And you've no inclination to talk to me, either?"
"I've told you I don't feel—well—exactly light-hearted this morning."
There was a little silence. She watched him askance with her fugitive, shadowy, sympathetic and shrewd smile.
"Must I make talk, then?" she demanded at length.
"If we must, I suppose—you'll have to show the way. My mind's hardly equal to trail-breaking to-day."
"So I shall, then. Hugh...." She leaned toward him, dropping her hand over his own with an effect of infinite comprehension. "Hugh," she repeated, meeting his gaze squarely as he looked up, startled—"what's the good of keeping up the make-believe? You know!"
The breath clicked in his throat, and his glance wavered uneasily, then steadied again to hers. And through a long moment neither stirred, but sat so, eye to eye, searching each the other's mind and heart.
At length he confessed it with an uncertain, shamefaced nod.
"That's right," he said: "I do know—now."