“But the use of the house, and—and all the trouble I’m making you,” she said doubtfully. “I ought to pay for that.”
“Do you think so?” He looked at her with a peculiar expression which, however, was not beyond the power of her intuition to interpret.
“No; I don’t,” she declared.
Banneker answered her smile with his own, as he resumed his dish-wiping. Io wrote out her telegram with care. Her next observation startled the agent.
“Are you, by any chance, married?”
“No; I’m not. What makes you ask that?”
“There’s been a woman in here before.”
Confusedly his thoughts flew back to Carlotta. But the Mexican girl had never been in the shack. He was quite absurdly and inexplicably glad now that she had not.
“A woman?” he said. “Why do you think so?”
“Something in the arrangement of the place. That hanging, yonder. And that little vase—it’s good, by the way. The way that Navajo is placed on the door. One feels it.”