But from her place at the head of the table behind a big silver coffee urn, Ruth looked at the girl in the seat next her who had just finished speaking.
"I am sorry to hear you say that, Jack," she began quietly, "because pretty soon we are going to have what you and Jim are pleased to call 'another man' as our guest at the Rainbow Lodge and one whom of all others I most wish to see."
Jack was puzzled, but Olive Van Mater, with a swift glance at the older woman, felt the blood leaving her face and her hands turning cold. Her lids drooped swiftly over her dark eyes and immediately she devoted herself to eating her breakfast, though all the while she was studying Jack's expression.
At this moment a diversion was created by the entrance of a very fluffy, blue-eyed person in a pale blue breakfast toilet, who after kissing Ruth slipped into a place next her sister.
"Sorry I'm late," she said, without any suggestion of real contrition, "but since Jim makes us stay in the house so much lately there isn't any reason for getting up."
"Thank you, Frieda darling, for the pleasure you take in our society," Jean murmured, setting down her coffee cup in mock indignation. "I am sure that each and every member of your family feels grateful to you for your flattering suggestion. But since we are of no interest to you, perhaps you would like to hear that Ruth has just said we are to have an unexpected visitor—a man!"
Frieda first helped herself to the entire pile of griddle cakes. "I suppose everyone else has nearly finished," she remarked by way of explanation. And then: "Oh, I suppose the visitor is one of those tiresome men who is coming to help Ralph about the mine. I do wish things would quiet down, because as soon as our new house is finished Jean and I are dying to have a houseparty. Ralph said himself that his mining engineers were too old to be any fun—the youngest one is past thirty!"
"Yet I am still able to get about at that age, Frieda Ralston," Jim Colter protested.
At this instant Jack shook her head. "We are being very impolite to Ruth by talking so much," she declared. "Ruth was going to tell us about a new visitor and of course we are desperately anxious to hear. Who is he, Ruth, a stranger or an old friend? And where are you going to find a place for any one else at Rainbow Lodge?"
Purposely Ruth waited a moment in the silence that followed.