ss without a pause to Mercer.

"Won't you introduce me to your friend?" she said.

"What?" said Mercer. "Oh, that's Curtis, my foreman. Curtis, this is my
wife."

Curtis bowed stiffly, but Sybil held out her hand.

"How nice everything looks!" she said. "I am sure we have you to thank
for it."

"Beelzebub and me," he said; and again she was struck by the utter lack
of animation in his voice.

He was a man of about forty, lean and brown, with an unmistakable air of
breeding about him that put her at her ease at once. His quiet manner
was a supreme contrast to Mercer's roughness. She was quite sure that he
was not colonial born.

He sat at table with them, and waited also, but he did not utter a word
except now and again in answer to some brief query from Mercer. When the
meal was over he cleared the table and disappeared.

She looked at Mercer in some surprise as the door closed upon him.

"He's a useful chap," Mercer said. "I'm sorry there isn't a woman in the
house, but you'll find Beelzebub better than a dozen. And this fellow is
always at hand for anything you may want in the evening."

"He is a gentleman," she said almost involuntarily.

Mercer looked at her.

"Do you object to having a gentleman to wait on you?" he asked curtly.

She did not quite understand his tone, but she was very far just then
from understanding the man himself. His question demanded no answer, and
she gave none.

After a moment she got up, and, conscious of an oppression in the
atmosphere, took off her hat and pushed back the hair from her face.
She knew that Mercer was watching her, felt his eyes upon her, and
wished intensely that he would speak, but he did not utter a word. There
seemed to her to be something stubborn in his silence, and it affected
her strangely.

For a while she stood also silent, then suddenly with a little smile she
looked across at him.

"Aren't you going to show me everything?" she said.

"Not to-night," he said. "I will show you your bedroom if you are too
tired to stay up any longer."

She considered the matter for a few seconds, then quietly crossed the
room to his side. She laid a hand that trembled slightly on his
shoulder.

"You have been very good to me," she said.

He stiffened at her touch.

"You had better go to bed," he said gruffly, and made as if he would
rise.

But she checked him with a dignity all her own.

"Wait, please; I want to speak to you."

"Not to thank me, I h