"No.... Let go of me, dear!" The applause ceased. The curtain was about to "rise." The servant who was to draw the near half of it reached in from the cabin and closed their door. "No, dear, you won't sing again till after this act, anyhow."
"Oh, not even then! I just must stay with Basile. I've sung all the verses but one, you know."
"We've got some more new ones," replied the lady, smiling to Hugh, who was moving to let her pass out.
"Got them!" cried the girl. She turned to Hugh. "They've made them! Didn't you know Mr. and Mrs. Gilmore made every line I've sung? Oh, Mr. Hugh, what can't genius do?"
Hugh solemnly dissented. "Those lines," he said, "could never have been made by mere genius!"
She stared at him a moment and then at Mrs. Gilmore, who was escaping by the outer door and who replied: "My dear, every line made for you has been made by Mr. Hugh." She vanished while the two stood dumbly face to face, but on second thought was back again just in time to see and hear Ramsey say, still gazing:
"Well, of--all--things! You! That frightful rubbish! You've got to sing the rest, yourself! Oh, Mrs. Gilmore, make him do it! It'll tickle 'em all to death--to hear _him_ sing Gideon's Band!--and I can stay with Basile."
"Preposterous!" rumbled Hugh, and again, "preposterous!"
"Why--happy thought!" said Mrs. Gilmore. "Why, the very thing, Mr. Hugh, the very thing! Come. First we'll take this young lady up-stairs----" As they started the Californian appeared, laying a caressing hand on Hugh.
"Wait here," slowly said Hugh in response to the gold-hunter's touch. "I'll--see you presently."
The modest adventurer waved assent, yet looked so disappointed that Mrs. Gilmore, moving to take his arm, asked:
Oh, kind, quick wit! Three is a crowd, four is only twice two!
"Certainly," said Hugh, and to Ramsey added: "We'd better lead the way."
As they led she softly inquired: "Does he want to know something about the twins?"
What arrows were her questions, and how straight they struck home! Yet with that low voice for their bowstring they gave him comfort. Her forays into his confidence not only relieved the loneliness of his too secretive mind but often, as now, involved a sweet yielding of her confidence to him. Yet now a straight answer was quite impossible.