At noon she did.  She declared herself ready for luncheon.  There was about her a matter-of-fact acceptance of the situation as natural, even inevitable, which entranced Banneker when it did not appall him.  After the meal was over, the girl seated herself on a low bench which Banneker had built with his own hands and the Right-and-Ready Tool Kit (9 T 603), her knee between her clasped hands and an elfish expression on her face.

“Don’t you think,” she suggested, “that we’d get on quicker if you washed the dishes and I sat here and talked to you?”

“Very likely.”

“It isn’t so easy to begin, you know,” she remarked, nursing her knee thoughtfully.  “Am I—­Do you find me very much in the way?’”

“No.”

“Don’t suppress your wild enthusiasm on my account,” she besought him.  “I haven’t interfered with your duties so far, have I?”

“No,” answered Banneker wondering what was coming next.

“You see”—­her tone became ruminative and confidential—­“if I give you my name and you report it, there’ll be all kinds of a mix-up.  They’ll come after me and take me away.”

Banneker dropped a tin on the floor and stood, staring.

“Isn’t that what you want?”

“It’s evident enough that it’s what you want,” she returned, aggrieved.

“No.  Not at all,” he disclaimed.  “Only—­well, out here—­alone—­I don’t understand.”

“Can’t you understand that if one had happened to drop out of the world by chance, it might be desirable to stay out for a while?”

“For you?  No; I can’t understand that.”

“What about yourself?” she challenged with a swift, amused gleam.  “You are certainly staying out of the world here.”

“This is my world.”

Her eyes and voice dropped.  “Truly?” she murmured.  Then, as he made no reply, “It isn’t much of a world for a man.”

To this his response touched the heights of the unexpected.  He stretched out his arm toward the near window through which could be seen the white splendor of Mount Carstairs, dim in the wreathing murk.

“Lo!  For there, amidst the flowers and grasses, Only the mightier movement sounds and passes, Only winds and rivers, Life and death,” he quoted.

Her eyes glowed with sheer, incredulous astonishment.  “How came you by that Stevenson?” she demanded.  “Are you poet as well as recluse?”

“I met him once.”

“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: