A brooding expression was in the girl’s deep eyes as she turned them, not to the speaker, but to Banneker. “No,” she said. “I’ve got to get away sooner or later. I’d rather go this way. It’s more—it’s more of a pattern with all the rest; better than stupidly waving good-bye from the rear of a train.”
“But the danger.”
“Che sará, sará,” returned Io lightly. “I’ll trust him to take care of me.”
While Ban went out to prepare the horses with the aid of Pedro, strictly enjoined to secrecy, the two women got Io’s few things together.
“I can’t thank you,” said the girl, looking up as she snapped the lock of her case. “It simply isn’t a case for thanking. You’ve done too much for me.”
The older woman disregarded it. “How much are you hurting Ban?” she said, with musing eyes fixed on the dim and pure outline of the girlish face.
“I? Hurt him?”
“Of course he won’t realize it until you’ve gone. Then I’m afraid to think what is coming to him.”
“And I’m afraid to think what is coming to me,” replied the girl, very low.
“Ah, you!” retorted her hostess, dismissing that consideration with contemptuous lightness. “You have plenty of compensations, plenty of resources.”