Of Starr she had not heard a sound, and she went to the door nervously to call him when breakfast was at last on the table.  He was standing exactly as he had stood when she left the room.  So far as she could see, he had not moved a muscle or turned his head or winked an eyelid.  His stoniness chilled her so that it was an effort to form words to tell him that breakfast was ready.

There was an instant’s pause before he turned, and Helen May felt that he had almost decided not to eat.  But he followed her to the kitchen and spoke to Vic quite humanly, as he took the chair she offered, and unfolded the napkin that struck an odd note of refinement among its makeshift surroundings; for the stove had only two real legs, the other two corners being propped up on rocks; the dish cupboard was of boxes, and everything in the way of food supplies stood scantily hidden behind thin curtains of white dotted swiss that Helen May had brought with her.

An hour ago Starr would have dwelt gloatingly upon these graceful evidences of Helen May’s brave fight against the crudities of her surroundings.  Now they gave him a keener thrust of pain.  So did the tremble of her hand when Helen May poured his coffee; it betrayed to Starr her guilty fear that he had seen what was on those two papers.  He glanced up at her face, and caught her own troubled glance just flicking away from him.  She was scared, then! he told himself.  She was watching to see if he had read anything that seemed suspicious.  Well, he’d have to calm her down a little, just as a matter of policy.  He couldn’t let her tip him off to the bunch, whatever happened.

Starr smiled.  “I sure feel like I’m imposing on good nature,” he said, looking at her again with careful friendliness.  “Coming here begging for breakfast, and now when you’ve gone to the trouble of cooking it, I’ve got one of my pet headaches that won’t let me enjoy anything.  Hits me that way sometimes when I’ve had an extra long ride.  But I sure wish it had waited awhile.”

Helen May gave him a quick, hopeful smile.  “I have some awfully good tablets,” she said.  “Wait till I give you one, before you eat.  My doctor gave me a supply before I left home, because I have headache so much—­or did have.  I’m getting much better, out here!  I’ve hardly felt like the same person, the last two or three weeks.”

“You have got to show me where you’re any better acting,” Vic pointed out, with the merciless candor of beauty’s young brother.  “It sure ain’t your disposition that’s improved, I can tell you those.”

“And with those few remarks you can close,” Helen May retorted gleefully, hurrying off to get the headache tablet.  It was just a headache, poor fellow!  He wasn’t peeved at all, and nothing was wrong!

It was astonishing how her mood had lightened in the past two minutes.  She got him a glass of water to help the tablet down his throat, and stood close beside him while he swallowed it and thanked her, and began to make some show of eating his breakfast.  She was, in fact, the same whimsically charming Helen May he had come to care a great deal for.