"A woman was looking out of that doorway at us," he said. "If she's not in deep water I'm a bad guesser. I thought for a moment she knew me or some one of us. She started to reach out her hands and then shrank back."
"Young or old?" asked the cattleman.
"Young—a girl."
"Which door?"
"The third."
"Excuse me." The host was off in an instant, almost on the run.
But the woman had gone, swallowed in the semi-darkness of a side street. Clay followed.
Beatrice turned to her father, eyebrows lifted. There was a moment's awkward silence.
"Mr. Lindsay will be back presently," Whitford said. "We'll get in and wait for him out of the way a little farther up the street."
When Clay rejoined them he was without his overcoat. He stood in the heavy rain beside the car, a figure of supple grace even in his evening clothes, and talked in a low voice with Beatrice's father. The mining man nodded agreement and Lindsay turned to the others.