Page:Steadfast Heart.djvu/326

 Their minds were filled with but one topic—Judge Crane and his affairs occupied every conversationalist in Rainbow that night…. Browning’s first words referred to it.

Angus frowned uneasily. “Please—not that…. Let’s not talk about that.”

“Right,” said Dave, “let’s discuss women’s fashions as exemplified in the show window of our milliner. Then we can take up crops and business and religion and reparations. Maybe you’ll talk me into an editorial that will startle the nation.”

And so they talked, homey, pleasant, satisfying chat—what Dave Wilkins always called “just talk,” until Angus was again at his ease—as much at his ease as he could be in a house that contained Lydia Canfield, invisible though she might be.

Invisible she was. Upstairs in her room Lydia heard the arrival of callers, recognized Dave Wilkins’s voice, then Angus Burke’s. She listened eagerly, hungrily. He was in the same house with her. The same roof was over both their heads…. His voice sounded in her ears and a dozen steps would carry her to his side, to the room in which he sat, where she could see him with her eyes, touch him with her fingers if she dared…. She nursed the thought of such daring.