II
"I won't pretend this is accidental, Miss Stanton."
Ikey looked up startled, began to curl her feet up under her skirt, decided that it was not worth while,—he was only one of the boarders,—and offered buns and candy with indifferent promptness.
"There's a gang of toughs coming down over the hill. Strikers, maybe. I thought they might startle you."
He seated himself unceremoniously on a rock near by.
Ikey settled back with a little comfortable movement against her own rock and raised her eyebrows.
"The proper thing for me to do at this stage is to inquire in a haughty voice how you happened to know I was here."
"I followed you."
There was no hint of apology, and she looked at him more closely. She had sat opposite him at the unesthetic boarding-house dining-table for the past six weeks now. He ate enormously,—but in cultured wise,—never said anything, was something over six feet tall, wore ready-made, dust-colored clothes, and was utterly inconspicuous. "Like a big gray wall." Just now it was the expression of his face, intangibly different—or had she never taken the trouble to notice him before?—that fixed her attention.
He was looking straight at her.