Dinner was a cheerful function, but when they went back to the hall
Evelyn was quiet. Joseph Dearham and others had made some renovations
in the hall, but they harmonized with the crooked roof-beams and dark
oak. There were one or two tall lamps and another that hung by iron
chains, but Jim generally used candles in old silver stands. Evelyn
wondered how Jim knew that candles were right. It was strange that he
often, unconsciously, she thought, struck the proper note.

She studied him and Jake while she talked to Mrs. Winter. Jim seldom
wore conventional evening clothes, but he had put on an American
dinner-jacket. He and his comrade were strangely agile; their
movements were quick, their step was light, like a cat's, and she noted
how they lifted their feet. She did not know the prospector gets the
habit by walking through tangled bush and across rough stones. They
had a suppleness that came from using the long ax, and toil in the
wilds had given them a fine-drawn look. In some ways both were modern,
but in some they belonged to the past, when the fortress peels were
built and the marsh-men fought the Scots.

Jim crossed the floor, and when he began to talk to Carrie, Evelyn felt
a jealous pang. The girl had been in the woods with Jim; she had
beauty and a curious primitive strength. Jim leaned forward, smiling
as he talked to her; they talked confidentially, like tried comrades.
Evelyn was moved to something near anger and went to the old grand
piano Jim had brought from the drawing-room when he found that Carrie
could play ragtime airs. Evelyn had a talent for music and meant to
make an experiment. If Jim was what she thought, he would respond.

"If somebody will light the candles, I will sing," she said.

The candles had pale-yellow shades and when Jim struck a match the
colored light touched her face and dress. Except for this, the corner
was somewhat dark. Amber was Evelyn's color. She struck a few chords
that seemed to echo in the distance and then, glancing at Jim, began a
prelude with a measured beat. His face was intent; he seemed to search
for something in the music that sounded as if it were getting nearer.
She wondered whether he heard the call of trumpets and horses' feet
drumming in the dark. Somehow she thought he did.

Perhaps she was debasing her talent; this kind of thing was rather a
theatrical trick than music. For all that, it needed feeling, and she
knew the old Border ball