In her room she went straight to the long cheval glass and looked at Leila Grey. "So, he will never ask me again?" The mirror reported a quite other answer. "Mark Rivers once said conscience runs down at times like a watch. I must have forgotten to wind up mine. How could I have done it!" She blushed a little at the remembrance. "Well, he will never know." She dressed in white summer garb with unusual care and went down the stairs smiling.
"The Captain is not in yet," said the maid.
She waited long for John Penhallow, who had gone up the back stairs, and now at last came down to dinner.
"Excuse me, Leila. I was so very tired that I fell asleep in the old cabin, but I had a noble tramp, and there are some birds, not many; I shot badly." He said no word of the displaced game-bag, which made her uneasy, but talked of the mills and of some trouble at the mines about wages. She pretended to be interested.
After dinner, she said, "You will want to smoke—come into Uncle Jim's library. I like the pipe smell. How Aunt Ann detests it!"
"Has Uncle Jim gone back to his pipe?" he inquired, as she sat down.
"Yes, and Aunt Ann declares that she likes it now."
"How pleasantly you women can fib," remarked John.
She made no reply except, "Well, sometimes." He did not fill his pipe although he lighted in succession two matches and let them burn out.
"Why don't you smoke, John?" This was a vague effort at the self-defence which she felt might be needed, the mood of the hour not being at all like the mood of two hours ago.