“Tell me about it.”
“Some other time. We’ve other things to talk of now.”
“Some other time? Then I’m to stay!”
“In Manzanita?”
“Manzanita? No. Here.”
“In this station? Alone? But why—”
“Because I’m Io Welland and I want to, and I always get what I want,” she retorted calmly and superbly.
“Welland,” he repeated. “Miss I.O. Welland. And the address is New York, isn’t it?”
Her hands grew tense across her knee, and deep in her shadowed eyes there was a flash. But her voice suggested not only appeal, but almost a hint of caress as she said:
“Are you going to betray a guest? I’ve always heard that Western hospitality—”
“You’re not my guest. You’re the company’s.”
“And you won’t take me for yours?”
“Be reasonable, Miss Welland.”
“I suppose it’s a question of the conventionalities,” she mocked.
“I don’t know or care anything about the conventionalities—”
“Nor I,” she interrupted. “Out here.”
“—but my guess would be that they apply only to people who live in the same world. We don’t, you and I.”
“That’s rather shrewd of you,” she observed.
“It isn’t an easy matter to talk about to a young girl, you know.”
“Oh, yes, it is,” she returned with composure. “Just take it for granted that I know about all there is to be known and am not afraid of it. I’m not afraid of anything, I think, except of—of having to go back just now.” She rose and went to him, looking down into his eyes. “A woman knows whom she can trust in—in certain things. That’s her gift, a gift no man has or quite understands. Dazed as I was last night, I knew I could trust you. I still know it. So we may dismiss that.”
“That is true,” said Banneker, “so far as it goes.”
“What farther is there? If it’s a matter of the inconvenience—”
“No. You know it isn’t that.”
“Then let me stay in this funny little shack just for a few days,” she pleaded. “If you don’t, I’ll get on to-night’s train and go on and—and do something I’ll be sorry for all the rest of my life. And it’ll be your fault! I was going to do it when the accident prevented. Do you believe in Providence?”
“Not as a butt-in,” he answered promptly. “I don’t believe that Providence would pitch a rock into a train and kill a lot of people, just to prevent a girl from making a foo—a bad break.”
“Nor I,” she smiled. “I suppose there’s some kind of a General Manager over this queer world; but I believe He plays the game fair and square and doesn’t break the rules He has made Himself. If I didn’t, I wouldn’t want to play at all! … Oh, my telegram! I must wire my aunt in New York. I’ll tell her that I’ve stopped off to visit friends, if you don’t object to that description as being too compromising,” she added mischievously. She accepted a pad which he handed her and sat at the table, pondering. “Mr. Banneker,” she said after a moment.
“Well?”
“If the telegram goes from here, will it be headed by the name of the station?”
“Yes.”
“So that inquiry might be made here for me?”
“It might, certainly.”
“But I don’t want it to be. Couldn’t you leave off the station?”
“Not very well.”
“Just for me?” she wheedled. “For your guest that you’ve been so insistent on keeping,” she added slyly.
“The message wouldn’t be accepted.”
“Oh, dear! Then I won’t send it.”
“If you don’t notify your family, I must report you to the company.”
“What an irritating sense of duty you have! It must be dreadful to be afflicted that way. Can’t you suggest something?” she flashed. “Won’t you do a thing to help me stay? I believe you don’t want me, after all.”
“If the up-train gets through this evening, I’ll give your wire to the engineer and he’ll transmit it from any office you say.”
Childlike with pleasure she clapped her hands. “Of course! Give him this, will you?” From a bag at her wrist she extracted a five-dollar bill. “By the way, if I’m to be a guest I must be a paying guest, of course.”
“You can pay for a cot that I’ll get in town,” he agreed, “and your share of the food.”
“But the use of the house, and—and all the trouble I’m making you,” she said doubtfully. “I ought to pay for that.”
“Do you think so?” He looked at her with a peculiar expression which, however, was not beyond the power of her intuition to interpret.
“No; I don’t,” she declared.
Banneker answered her smile with his own, as he resumed his dish-wiping. Io wrote out her telegram with care. Her next observation startled the agent.
“Are you, by any chance, married?”
“No; I’m not. What makes you ask that?”
“There’s been a woman in here before.”
Confusedly his thoughts flew back to Carlotta. But the Mexican girl had never been in the shack. He was quite absurdly and inexplicably glad now that she had not.
“A woman?” he said. “Why do you think so?”
“Something in the arrangement of the place. That hanging, yonder. And that little vase—it’s good, by the way. The way that Navajo is placed on the door. One feels it.”
“It’s true. A friend of mine came here one day and turned everything topsy-turvy.”
“I’m not asking questions just for curiosity. But is that the reason you didn’t want me to stay?”
He laughed, thinking of Miss Van Arsdale. “Heavens, no! Wait till you meet her. She’s a very wonderful person; but—”
“Meet her? Does she live near here, then?”
“A few miles away.”
“Suppose she should come and find me here?”
“It’s what I’ve been wishing.”
“Is it! Well, it isn’t what I wish at all.”
“In fact,” continued the imperturbable Banneker, “I rather planned to ride over to her place this afternoon.”
“Why, if you please?”
“To tell her about you and ask her advice.”
Io’s face darkened rebelliously. “Do you think it necessary to tattle to a woman who is a total stranger to me?”
“I think it would be wise to get her view,” he replied, unmoved.
“Well, I think it would be horrid. I think if you do any such thing, you are—Mr. Banneker! You’re not listening to me.”
“Some one is coming through the woods trail,”