The smell of roast meat, coffee and some sort of pie assailed his nostrils pleasantly when he came to the house, and he went in eagerly by the door which would bring him directly to the dining room.  As he had guessed, they were seated at the table.  “Why, come in, William,” Dill greeted, a welcoming note in his voice.  “We weren’t looking for you, but you are in good time.  We’ve only just begun.”

“How do you do, Mr. Boyle?” Miss Bridger added demurely.

“Hello, Bill!  How’re yuh coming?” cried another, and it was to him that the eyes of Billy Boyle turned bewilderedly.  That the Pilgrim should be seated calmly at the Double-Crank table never once occurred to him.  In his thoughts of Miss Bridger he had mentally eliminated the Pilgrim; for had she not been particular to show the Pilgrim that his presence was extremely undesirable, that night at the dance?

“Hello, folks!” he answered them all quietly, because there was nothing else that he could do until he had time to think.  Miss Bridger had risen and was smiling at him in friendly fashion, exactly as if she had never run away from him and stayed away all the evening because she was angry.

“I’ll fix you a place,” she announced briskly.  “Of course you’re hungry.  And if you want to wash off the dust of travel, there’s plenty of warm water out here in the kitchen.  I’ll get you some.”

She may not have meant that for an invitation, but Billy followed her into the kitchen and calmly shut the door behind him.  She dipped warm water out of the reservoir for him and hung a fresh towel on the nail above the washstand in the corner, and seemed about to leave him again.

“Yuh mad yet?” asked Billy, because he wanted to keep her there.

“Mad?  Why?” She opened her eyes at him.  “Not as much as you look,” she retorted then.  “You look as cross as if—­”

“What’s the Pilgrim doing here?” Billy demanded suddenly and untactfully.

“Who?  Mr. Walland?” She went into the pantry and came back with a plate for him.  “Why, nothing; he’s just visiting.  It’s Sunday, you know.”

“Oh—­is it?” Billy bent over the basin, hiding his face from her.  “I didn’t know; I’d kinda lost count uh the days.”  Whereupon he made a great splashing in his corner and let her go without more words, feeling more than ever that he needed time to think.  “Just visiting—­’cause it’s Sunday, eh?  The dickens it is!” Meditating deeply, he was very deliberate in combing his hair and settling his blue tie and shaking the dust out of his white silk neckerchief and retying it in a loose knot; so deliberate that Mama Joy was constrained to call out to him:  “Your dinner is getting cold, Mr. Boyle,” before he went in and took his seat where Miss Bridger had placed him—­and he doubted much her innocence in the matter—­elbow to elbow with the Pilgrim.

“How’s shipping coming on, Billy?” inquired the Pilgrim easily, passing to him the platter of roast beef.  “Most through, ain’t yuh?”