"No," he said gravely. "I can't say THAT! He's regularly cut up, you know! And changed; you'd hardly know him. More like a gloomy crank than the easy fool he used to be," he went on, with brotherly directness. "It wouldn't be a bad thing, you know, if you could manage to see him, Miss Trotter! In fact, as he's off his feed, and has some trouble with his arm again, owing to all this, Ireckon, I've been thinking of advising him to come up to the hotel once more till he's better. So long as SHE'S gone it would be all right, you know!"By this time Miss Trotter was herself again. She reasoned, or thought she did, that this was a question of the business of the hotel, and it was clearly her duty to assent to Chris's coming.
The strange yet pleasurable timidity which possessed her at the thought she ignored completely.
He came the next day. Luckily, she was so much shocked by the change in his appearance that it left no room for any other embarrassment in the meeting. His face had lost its fresh color and round outline; the lines of his mouth were drawn with pain and accented by his drooping mustache; his eyes, which had sought hers with a singular seriousness, no longer wore the look of sympathetic appeal which had once so exasperated her, but were filled with an older experience. Indeed, he seemed to have approximated so near to her own age that, by one of those paradoxes of the emotions, she felt herself much younger, and in smile and eye showed it; at which he colored faintly. But she kept her sympathy and inquiries limited to his physical health, and made no allusion to his past experiences; indeed, ignoring any connection between the two. He had been shockingly careless in his convalescence, had had a relapse in consequence, and deserved a good scolding! His relapse was a reflection upon the efficacy of the hotel as a perfect cure!
She should treat him more severely now, and allow him no indulgences! I do not know that Miss Trotter intended anything covert, but their eyes met and he colored again. Ignoring this also, and promising to look after him occasionally, she quietly withdrew.
But about this time it was noticed that a change took place in Miss Trotter. Always scrupulously correct, and even severe in her dress, she allowed herself certain privileges of color, style, and material. She, who had always affected dark shades and stiff white cuffs and collars, came out in delicate tints and laces, which lent a brilliancy to her dark eyes and short crisp black curls, slightly tinged with gray. One warm summer evening she startled every one by appearing in white, possibly a reminiscence of her youth at the Vermont academy. The masculine guests thought it pretty and attractive; even the women forgave her what they believed a natural expression of her prosperity and new condition, but regretted a taste so inconsistent with her age. For all that, Miss Trotter had never looked so charming, and the faint autumnal glow in her face made no one regret her passing summer.
One evening she found Chris so much better that he was sitting on the balcony, but still so depressed that she was compelled so far to overcome the singular timidity she had felt in his presence as to ask him to come into her own little drawing-room, ostensibly to avoid the cool night air. It was the former "card-room" of the hotel, but now fitted with feminine taste and prettiness. She arranged a seat for him on the sofa, which he took with a certain brusque boyish surliness, the last vestige of his youth.
"It's very kind of you to invite me in here," he began bitterly, "when you are so run after by every one, and to leave Judge Fletcher just now to talk to me, but I suppose you are simply pitying me for being a fool!""I thought you were imprudent in exposing yourself to the night air on the balcony, and I think Judge Fletcher is old enough to take care of himself," she returned, with the faintest touch of coquetry, and a smile which was quite as much an amused recognition of that quality in herself as anything else.
"And I'm a baby who can't," he said angrily. After a pause he burst out abruptly: "Miss Trotter, will you answer me one question?""Go on," she said smilingly.
"Did you know--that--woman was engaged to Bilson when I spoke to you in the wood?""No!" she answered quickly, but without the sharp resentment she had shown at his brother's suggestion. "I only knew it when Mr. Bilson told me the same evening."
"And I only knew it when news came of their marriage," he said bitterly.
"But you must have suspected something when you saw them together in the wood," she responded.
"When I saw them together in the wood?" he repeated dazedly.
Miss Trotter was startled, and stopped short. Was it possible he had not seen them together? She was shocked that she had spoken;but it was too late to withdraw her words. "Yes," she went on hurriedly, "I thought that was why you came back to say that I was not to speak to her."He looked at her fixedly, and said slowly: "You thought that?
Well, listen to me. I saw NO ONE! I knew nothing of this! Isuspected nothing! I returned before I had reached the wood--because--because--I had changed my mind!"
"Changed your mind!" she repeated wonderingly.
"Yes! Changed my mind! I couldn't stand it any longer! I did not love the girl--I never loved her--I was sick of my folly. Sick of deceiving you and myself any longer. Now you know why I didn't go into the wood, and why I didn't care where she was nor who was with her!""I don't understand," she said, lifting her clear eyes to his coldly.
