“It is all in the large room upstairs, but if you have any designs upon it, you are disobeying orders.”
“I must get at a portmanteau that is in one of the bundles.”
“I will fetch what you want, so don’t worry about that, but come and sit on the verandah once more.”
Stranleigh protested, and finally a compromise was arrived at. Miss Armstrong would whistle for Jim, and he would do the unpacking. She saw a shade of distrust pass over Stranleigh’s face, and she reassured him that Jim was the most honest and harmless man in the world, except, perhaps, where sheriffs were concerned.
“Now,” she continued, when he had seated himself, “you have talked enough for one day, so you must keep quiet for the rest of the afternoon. I will do the talking, giving you an explanation of our brigandish conduct.”
“I shall be an interested listener,” said Stranleigh, resignedly. “But permit me, before silence falls, to ask what you may regard an impertinent question. Do you smoke?”
“Goodness, no!” she replied, with widely opened eyes.
“Many ladies do, you know, and I thought you might have acquired the habit during your travels abroad. In that case, I should have been delighted to offer you some excellent cigarettes from my portmanteau.”
Jumping up, the girl laughed brightly.