He stopped to load and light his pipe before he faced Mrs. Otto, and he clouded himself in as much smoke as possible while he explained to her that he had almost forced Joanne to stop at his cabin and eat partridges with him.  He learned that the Tete Jaune train could not go on until the next day, and after Mrs. Otto had made him take a loaf of fresh bread and a can of home-made marmalade as a contribution to their feast, he turned back toward the cabin, trying to whistle in his old careless way.

The questions he had first asked himself about Joanne forced themselves back upon him now with deeper import.  Almost unconsciously he had revealed himself to her.  He had spread open for her eyes and understanding the page which he had so long hidden.  He had as much as confessed to her that she had come to change him—­to complete what he had only half created.  It had been an almost inconceivable and daring confession, and he believed that she understood him.  More than that, she had read about him.  She had read his books.  She knew John Aldous—­the man.

But what did he know about her beyond the fact that her name was Joanne Gray, and that the on-sweeping Horde had brought her into his life as mysteriously as a storm might have flung him a bit of down from a swan’s breast?  Where had she come from?  And why was she going to Tete Jaune?  It must be some important motive was taking her to a place like Tete Jaune, the rail-end, a place of several thousand men, with its crude muscle and brawn and the seven passions of man.  It was an impossible place for a young and beautiful woman unprotected.  If Joanne had known any one among the engineers or contractors, or had she possessed a letter of introduction to them, the tense lines would not have gathered so deeply about the corners of Aldous’ mouth.  But these men whose brains were behind the Horde—­the engineers and the contractors—­knew what women alone and unprotected meant at Tete Jaune.  Such women floated in with the Horde.  And Joanne was going in with the Horde.  There lay the peril—­and the mystery of it.

So engrossed was Aldous in his thoughts that he had come very quietly to the cabin door.  It was Joanne’s voice that roused him.  Sweet and low she was singing a few lines from a song which he had never heard.

She stopped when Aldous appeared at the door.  It seemed to him that her eyes were a deeper, more wonderful blue as she looked up at him, and smiled.  She had found a towel for an apron, and was peeling potatoes.

“You will have some unusual excuses to make very soon,” she greeted him.  “We had a visitor while you were gone.  I was washing the potatoes when I looked up to find a pair of the fiercest, reddest moustaches I have ever seen, ornamenting the doorway.  The man had two eyes that seemed about to fall out when he saw me.  He popped away like a rabbit—­and—­and—­there’s something he left behind in his haste!”

Joanne’s eyes were flooded with laughter as she nodded at the door.  On the sill was a huge quid of tobacco.