Nell shook her head seriously. "He is very entertaining," she replied, "and has read a great deal and seen a great deal; but there is something about his eyes that—well, that is not attractive."
"Most eccentric people have eyes like that," returned Mrs. Harley—who, by the way, was not a native of the settlement—"and I do not think them unattractive. Now there is poor Dick Goodine. His eyes are like that, too—so bright and quick."
"But Dick's are honest—and Captain Wigmore's look sly."
"Oh! You like Dick's eyes, Nell? Well, I think you might find eyes to admire belonging to some one more worth while than Dick Goodine."
"Don't be silly, Kate, please!" cried Nell. "I am no more interested in the eyes of the young men of this place than you are."
"What about David Marsh?"
"Poor David. He is not amusing; and, though he looks so simple, I must say that I cannot understand him."
Jim Harley went to see Rayton, and found him bringing his horses in from the fields just at the fall of the dusk. The Englishman had been doing a last bit of fall plowing before the frost gripped the land in earnest. He was muddy, but cheerful; and as hospitable as ever. Harley stayed to supper—a very good supper of his host's own cooking. Then they lit their pipes and went into the sitting room, where a fine fire was crackling in the open stove. Harley told Rayton the same story that he had told, the night before, to young Marsh.
"Good heavens! That is very tragic!" exclaimed the Englishman. "But I must say that I think last night's incident was nothing but chance. The card had become marked in some way, quite by accident—and there you are."
They talked for an hour or two, and Rayton would not give way an inch in his argument, that the affair of the previous night had been nothing but blind chance. He was much more impressed by the other's story of the past, and felt a new interest in Jim Harley.