“Guess you ain’t figgered on the ‘old man’ ’bout her?” he said.
“That, I think, is strictly my affair,” Tresler replied coldly.
Jake laughed, and sat down near the door. The answer had no effect on him.
“Say, I guess you ain’t never had a cyclone hit you?” he asked maliciously. “It’ll be interestin’ to see when you tell him. Maybe——”
Whatever he was about to say was cut short by the approach of the rancher. And it was wonderful the change that came over the man as he sat listening to the tap-tap of the blind man’s stick in the passage. He watched the door uneasily, and there was a short breathless attention about him. Tresler, watching, could not help thinking of the approach of some Eastern potentate, with his waiting courtiers and subjects rubbing their faces in the dust lest his wrath should be visited upon them. He admitted that Jake’s attitude just now was his true one.
At the door Julian Marbolt stood for a moment, doing by means of his wonderful hearing what his eyes failed to do for him. And the marvel of it was that he faced accurately, first toward Tresler, then toward Jake. He stood like some tall, ascetic, gray-headed priest, garbed in a dressing-gown that needed but little imagination to convert into a cassock. And the picture of benevolence he made was only marred by the staring of his dreadful eyes.
“Well, Jake?” he said, in subdued, gentle tones. “What trouble has brought you round here at this hour?”
“Trouble enough,” Jake responded, with a slight laugh. “Tresler here brings it, though.”
The blind man turned toward the window and instinctively focussed the younger man, and somehow Tresler shivered as with a cold draught when the sightless eyes fixed themselves upon him.
“Ah, you Tresler. Well, we’ll hear all about it.” Marbolt moved slowly, though without the aid of his stick now, over to the table, and seated himself.