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She answered in the same perfunctory way: “You have been very kind; uncle has depended on you so much. Your advice and help have been everything to him.”

He took her up with needless probity: “Whatever you do, don’t thank me! It’s bad enough to have Mr. Withers heaping coals of fire on my head. He gives me the place always, in regard to his son, of an intimate friend; which I never was, and God knows I never claimed to be! He took it for granted, somehow,–perhaps because of my letters at first, though any brute would have done as much at a time like that! Afterwards I would have set him right, but I was afraid of thrusting back the friendly imputation in his face. He credits me with having been this and that of a godsend to his son, when as a fact we parted, that last time, not even good friends. Perhaps you can forgive me for saying it? You see how I am placed!”

This iron apology which some late scruple had ground out of Thane seemed to command Daphne’s deepest attention. She gave it a moment’s silence, then she said, “There is nothing that hurts one, I think, like being unable to feel as people take for granted one must and ought to feel.” But her home application of it gave a slight deflection to Thane’s meaning which he firmly corrected.

“I felt all right; so did he, I dare say, but we never let each other know how we felt. Men don’t, as a rule. Your uncle takes for granted that I knew a lot about him,–his thoughts and feelings; that we were immensely sympathetic. Perhaps we were, but we didn’t know it. We knew nothing of each other intimately. He never spoke to me of his private affairs but once, the night before he started. It was at Wood River. Some of us gave him a little supper. Afterwards we had some business to settle and I was alone with him in his room. It was then I made my break; and–well, it ended as I say: we quarreled. It has hurt me since, especially as I was wrong.”

“What can men quarrel about when they don’t know each other well? Politics, perhaps?” Daphne endeavored to give her words a general application.

“It was not politics with us,” Thane replied curtly. Changing the subject, he said, “I wish you could see the valley from that hogback over to the west.” He pointed towards the spine of the main divide, which they would cross on their next day’s journey. “Will you come up there this evening and take a look at the country? The wind will die down at sunset, I think.”

There was a studied commonplaceness in his manner; his eyes avoided hers.

“Thanks; I should like to,” she answered in the same defensive tone.

* * * * *

“To go back to what we were saying,” Daphne began, when they were seated, that evening, on the hilltop. All around them the view of the world rose to meet the sky, glowing in the west, purple in the east, while the pale planets shone, and below them the river glassed and gleamed in its crooked bed. “I ask you seriously,” she said. “What was the trouble between you?” Doubtless she had a reason for asking, but it was not the one that she proceeded to give. “Had you–have you, perhaps–any claims in a business way against him? Because, if you had, it would be most unfair to his father”–The words gave her difficulty; but her meaning, as forced meanings are apt to be, was more than plain.

Thane was not deceived: a woman who yields to curiosity, under however pious an excuse, is, to say the least, normal. Her thoughts are neither in the heavens above nor in the grave beneath. His black eyes flashed with the provocation of the moment. It was instinct that bade him not to spare her.