She managed to smile, but these cheap little pat quotations which she had found amusing enough at first now began to grate on her through repetition. Just as Connor tagged and labeled his idea with this aphorism, so she felt that Connor himself was tagged by them. She found him considering her with some anxiety.
"You haven't begun to doubt me, Ruth?" he asked her.
And he put out his hand with a note of appeal. It was a new rôle for him and she at once disliked it. She shook the hand heartily.
"That's a foolish thing to say," she assured him. "But—why does that old man keep sneaking around us?"
It was Zacharias, who for some time had been prowling around the patio trying to find something to do which would justify his presence.
"Do you think David Eden keeps him here as a spy on us?"
This was too much for even Connor's suspicious mind, and he chuckled.
"They all want to hang around and have a look at you—that's the point," he answered. "Speak to him and you'll see him come running."
It needed not even speech; she smiled and nodded at Zacharias, and he came to her at once with a grin of pleasure wrinkling his ancient face. She invited him to sit down.
"I never see you resting," she said.