Alice Deringham smiled a little, and moved one foot a trifle nearer the stove.  It was little, and delicately moulded, and lost nothing from being encased in a very open bronze slipper.  Alton, noticing the slight rustle of fabric which accompanied the movement, glanced towards it, and then turned his eyes away.

“You see I have been taking liberties,” said the girl.  “All this is very tawdry, isn’t it?”

Alton’s eyes were wistful.  “No.  Do you know, this place has quite an effect on me.  It makes me feel—­as if I were in church,” said he.

Miss Deringham’s face was not responsive.  There were times when she was sensible of a curious compunction in this rancher’s presence.  “A sensation of that kind is apt to become oppressive,” she said.  “When we have gone you will throw these things away.”

The man seemed to wince, as though the contemplation of something was painful to him, but he looked at his companion gravely.

“I think I shall screw the door up tight,” he said.

Alice Deringham laughed musically.  “Now I think that was very pretty,” she said.  “It seems commonplace to offer you a cup of coffee after it, and no doubt you will consider the indulgence in such luxuries a sign of weakness.  I have reasons for believing that Mrs. Margery does.”

Alton smiled somewhat grimly.  “I’m just about as fond of good things as most other men,” he said.  “The difficulty was that I seldom had the chance of getting them.”

Miss Deringham busied herself with a spirit lamp, and Alton watched her with a little glint in his eyes.  Possibly the girl knew that her movements were graceful as she bent over the lamp, and that the light from the one above her struck a fine sparkle from her hair.  She may also have been aware that the picture had its attractions for a man who had lived a grim life of toil and self-denial, as this one had done.

“It has occurred to me that this coffee is not the same that we had when we first came to Somasco,” she said.

Alton appeared a trifle embarrassed.  “I had to go down and worry Horton about one or two little things,” he said.  “It’s good for him occasionally, and he had been sending me flour we couldn’t use lately.”

Miss Deringham nodded, though she was quite aware that the storekeeper was scarcely likely to supply axemen and ranchers, whose tastes were simple and dollars scarce, with what she guessed by its bouquet was the finest product of Costa Rica.  If she had not been, she was capable of deducing a little from the stamp upon the packets she had seen in Mrs. Margery’s store, which showed that they had come direct from Vancouver.

Alton took up the cup handed him, and leaned back in his chair with a little gesture of content, while the girl smiled as she glanced at him.

[Illustration:  Alton leaned back with a little gesture of content.]

“You bear it very well,” she said.