"What's he doing here?" demanded Harrison blackly.
"Perhaps you'd better ask him." Steve turned on his heel and walked back to his boarding-house.
His arrival at the breakfast table was greeted with a chorus of exclamations. What was he doing back so soon? Had he got homesick? Had he run out of money already?
He let them worm out of him that he had ridden away and forgotten his purse and that upon discovering this he had come back for the supplies of war. They joked him unmercifully, even Daisy,—who was manifestly incredulous about his explanation,—and he accepted their hilarious repartee with the proper amount of sheepish resentment.
After the meal was over he lingered to see Ruth, who had just sat down to eat.
"Can I see you alone, Miss Ruth?"
She flashed a quick look at him, doubtful and apprehensive. "In the pergola, almost right away."
The girl reached the vine-draped entrance of the pergola shortly after Yeager. Manifestly her fears had been growing in the interval since he had left her.
"What is it?" And swift on the heels of that, "Is it about Phil?"
"Yes."