Perhaps it
was.
The sky was growing gray when the two crews met. The orange lights were
gone, and Dick, with a spiteful flop of the black rag which had been a
good, new sack, stamped out the last tiny red tongue of the fire. The
men stood about in awkward silence, panting with heat and weariness. Sir
Redmond was ostentatiously filling his pipe. Beatrice knew him by his
straight, soldierly pose. In the drab half-light they were all mere
black outlines of men, and, for the most part, she could not distinguish
one from another. Keith Cameron she knew; instinctively by his slim
height, and by the way he carried his head. Unconsciously, she leaned
down from the high seat and listened for what would come next.
Keith seemed to be making a cigarette. A match flared and lighted his
face for an instant, then was pinched out, and he was again only a black
shape in the half-darkness.
"Well, I'm waiting for what you've got to say, Sir Redmond." His voice
cut sharply through the silence. If he had known Beatrice was out there
in the wagon he would have spoken lower, perhaps.
"I fancy I said all that is necessary just now," Sir Redmond answered
calmly. "You know what I think. From now on I shall act."
"And what are you going to do, then?" Keith's voice was clear and
unperturbed, as though he asked for the sake of being polite.
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