Page:The Baron of Diamond Tail (1923).pdf/177

 that time.

Her formidable bill-collector was not in sight, nothing more repellent than the broad, starched strings of her little apron was about her ample waist. She smiled as she shook hands with Dan, greeting him with quick, glad word; and smiled, a different smile altogether, when she gave Barrett her hand.

One would not expect to find phases in this woman, Barrett thought, but there was as much difference between smile and smile as wind and calm. His was a tentative smile, an acceptance on condition, an arms'-length-off smile. Dan Gustin's went to him warm out of the middle of her partial heart.

Here was a girl known to hundreds of wild devils, honest man and thief, soldier and civilian, addressed familiarly by all of them, yet a good girl, as Barrett knew by that unfathomable something that stands in an honest woman's eyes. He felt an unaccountable gratification over this discovery; it seemed to him that he had found something precious in an unexpected place.

And she knew, as well as he knew, that he was not of the kind that commonly came to her door. Fred Grubb had said she knew the secrets of the range, that she could tell a man many things. Barrett wondered if she could tell him what it was Dale Findlay knew. If she did know this, she would have to think tenderly of a man before he could get the key of the secret from her hand.

"You boys had supper?" she asked. Finding they had not, she at once disappeared to provide it.

There was one other belated guest eating supper