“But who is Sadie?”

Festing looked up sharply and saw that Helen was puzzled and suspicious.  Her eyes were harder and her mouth was set.

“Ah!” he said.  “Don’t you know?”

A wave of color flushed Helen’s face, but her voice was level.  “I don’t know!  It looks as if Bob had not told me the most important thing.  Do you mean that he is going to marry Miss Keller?”

Festing felt pitiful.  He saw that she had got a shock, but she bore it pluckily, and he tried to conquer his indignant rage.  Charnock had let him believe he had told her; he ought to have realized that the fellow could not act straight.

“I thought you knew,” he stammered.

“That’s obvious,” Helen replied with an effort for calm.  “But tell me something about Miss Keller.”

“Sadie runs the hotel and helps at the store.  She’s rather pretty and intelligent.  In fact, she’s generally capable and a good manager.”

“You seem to know her well since you call her Sadie.”

“Oh,” said Festing, “everybody calls her Sadie!”

“You mean in the bar and poolroom?  I understand the latter’s a public billiard-saloon!”

Festing felt that he must do Sadie justice.  She had her virtues, and although he was very angry with Charnock he did not want Helen to think the fellow had given her up for a worthless rival.  Still he was not sure if his putting the girl in a favorable light would soften the blow or not.

“To begin with, they don’t employ women in a Canadian bar.  Then Sadie’s quite a good sort and understands Bob—­perhaps better than an English girl could.  She was brought up on the plains and knows all about the life we lead.”

“You imply that she is not fastidious, and will be lenient to her husband’s faults?  That she will bring him down to her level?”

“Well,” said Festing, who thought Helen did not know Charnock’s dissipated habits, “I imagine she’ll keep him there, and that’s something.  I mean she won’t let him sink below her level; Sadie’s shrewd and determined.  Then marriage is a problem to men like Bob farming the plains.  Girls of the type they have been used to and would naturally choose couldn’t stand the hardships.”

“So they are satisfied with a lower type?  With any girl who pleases their eye?”

“I don’t think that’s quite fair,” Festing objected.  “Besides, lower is rather vague.”

“Then would you, for example, be satisfied with a girl like Miss Keller?”

“Certainly not,” said Festing, with incautious firmness.  “Anyway, not now I’ve seen a different kind in the Old Country.”

Helen turned her head and said nothing for a few moments.  Then she got up.

“I think you have had a difficult task, Mr. Festing, and I must thank you for the way you have carried it out.  We won’t speak of it again; but perhaps if Muriel Gardiner——­”

“She hasn’t asked me any questions or hinted that she is curious.”