“No, my dear; I’m just thinking of something to say to you, but I don’t seem—”
She smiled a little. In spite of herself, her lip curled faintly. “Don’t worry about it; it was stupid of me to expect it. I mean—” she added, hastily, immediately repenting the sarcasm. She glanced furtively at him, but his face was quite unmoved; evidently he had not noticed it, and she smiled faintly again.
“O Kathie, I knew there was something I’d forgotten to tell you, my dear; there’s a man coming down here. I don’t know whether—”
She looked up sharply. “A man coming here? What for?” she interrupted, breathlessly.
“Sent to help me about this oil-boring business, my dear.”
He had lighted his pipe, and was smoking placidly, taking long whiffs between his words.
“Well?” impatiently questioned his wife, fixing her bright eyes on his face.
“Well—that’s all, my dear.”
She checked an exclamation. “But don’t you know anything about him—his name? where he comes from? what he is like?” She was leaning forward against the table, her needle, with a long end of yellow silk drawn half-way through her work, held in her upraised hand, her whole attitude one of quivering excitement and expectancy.
The man took his pipe from his mouth deliberately, with a look of slow wonder.