When he returned with the car he was at least outwardly calm.  He helped Louise into the seat.

“I’ll have you home in no time,” said he.

“And you must stay for supper.”

“Yes; why not.  Might as well.”

“And we’ll pick up the girls; all of us can crowd in here somewhere.”

The slightest pause followed before his answer.

“Certainly,” he said.  “We can all ride.”

Imogene’s cabin, however, was the only one showing a light when they stopped before the pair of little houses, and only Imogene was at home.  She was delighted to go with Lee and Louise.  Ruth had driven with Charlie Menocal to Kennard earlier in the afternoon, she briefly stated.  Then she remarked: 

“Aren’t you dissipating frightfully to-night, Lee?”

“Like a regular devil,” was the response.

CHAPTER XIX

Imogene had been startled by a note in Lee’s answer to her bantering question that she never before had heard him use.  Though his words were uttered lightly, there nevertheless was a hard ring to them, a grate, as if his teeth were on edge.  Something had happened.  Ruth had driven during the afternoon to see him and returned exceedingly put out.  If anything had occurred, Imogene hoped it was—­well, one certain thing.

When Bryant brought her home that evening, he went with her into her cabin.  In silence he built up the fire, fussed for a time with the lamp-wick, lighted a cigarette, took a turn across the cabin, inspected thoughtfully the back of one hand, and then lifted his gaze to Imogene.  She had been waiting, with a vague alarm.  And this his stern visage and burning eyes increased.

“Will Ruth marry me at once, do you think?” he questioned.  “To-morrow—­or the next day?” His tone was calm.  He might have been speaking of the cabin, asking if it kept out the wind.

Imogene was dumbfounded by that voice and that inquiry.  She had expected anything but either.

“Not then; not so soon, I suspect,” she said, at length.

“When?  At the end of a week, the end of a fortnight?”

“I can’t say,” she replied with a sensation now of being harried. 
This would not do; she must get herself in hand.  “The fact is, Lee,
I’m not in Ruth’s confidence.  Haven’t been for some considerable time. 
We’ve drifted a little apart.”

“Only a little?”

“Only a little—­I hope.”

The cigarette Bryant held had gone out.  Presently he glanced at it, then crushed it in his palm and dropped it into a coat pocket.

“Don’t fence with me, Imogene,” he said.  “Give me the truth.”

The truth—­well, why not?  He was entitled to it.  Besides, since he had eyes and a brain with which to reason he was not ignorant of the girls’ waning friendship.  Pretense was foolish.  Imogene leaned forward in her seat and rested her crossed arms upon her knees, directing her look at the floor.  Her fluffy golden hair had been slightly disarranged when she removed her hat and so remained.  Her face was thinner than in the summer, with a pinched aspect about her lips.