He spoke lightly, but his brow clouded. It was evident that something of unhappy augury had been, revealed in his last appeal to the heavens.
"I want to be alone for a while," he said brusquely, "I'll turn up at supper time."
II
At the supper table a new direction was given to Archie's thoughts, for a time at least. Fortunately his nerves had grown accustomed to shocks and he was only dazed now by the intrusion of a new figure on the scene. The Governor and Congdon were already at the table when he reached the dining-room. Mrs. Leary had referred to an assistant she was expecting on the afternoon train, and as Archie appeared at the door a neatly attired waitress walked sedately before him to his place.
Sally Walker had faded in a long perspective of crowding memories. He never expected to see Sally again, but if the girl who stood by his chair was not Sally she was her twin. He sank into his seat, watching her out of the corner of his eye as she passed through the swing door with a flutter of her snowy apron. He replied feebly to the Governor's bantering salutation and nervously played with his fork. The Governor was soaring and Archie's bewilderment was evidently affording him secret delight.
Sally was not merely a past mistress of dissimulation; she was the undisputed reigning queen in that realm. She served the table with a strictly professional air, in no way betraying the fact that two of the guests had lately enjoyed the hospitality of her father's house or that she had beguiled one of them by the grossest misrepresentations to assist her to elope.
"There's custard and apple," she recited finally, "or you may have wheat cakes with syrup," and as Archie covertly met her eyes she winked, a wink not sly or vulgar but a wink expressive of mischief on a holiday and quite content with itself.
He was enormously curious to know how she had reached Huddleston and what her adventures had been on the way—matters as to which the suave Governor was no doubt fully informed, though he showed no disposition to disclose them.
For a gentleman, the guest of an inn, to lurk round the kitchen door waiting for a chance to address a waitress is wholly undignified, but Archie was doing this very thing the moment he could escape from the Governor and Congdon. Mrs. Leary was upstairs preparing additional rooms against the chance of further arrivals and Sally was alone in the kitchen.
"Well, I've got the same old job," she remarked carelessly, as Archie paused uncertainly on the threshold. "You're a pay guest here and I can't let you swing a towel, so if you want to talk take a chair on the side lines."