FullReads

She stood a moment on the lawn, closing her eyes.

Oh, now she had no difficulty in recalling his face–in fact the difficulty was to shut it out, for it was before her eyes, open or shut–it was before her when she entered her bedroom and sank into a cushioned chair by the breezy window. And she took her burning cheeks in both hands and rested her elbows on her knees.

Truly terror had fled. It shamed her to find herself thanking God that her fate was to lie in the keeping of this young man. Yet it was natural, too, for the child had nigh died of horror, though the courage of the Castles had held her head high in the presence of the inevitable. And now suddenly into her gray and hopeless future, peopled by the phantoms of an old man, stepped a living, smiling young fellow, with gentle manners and honest speech, and a quick courtesy which there was no mistaking.

She had no mother–nobody to talk to–so she had long ago made a confidante of her own reflection in the looking-glass. And to the mirror she now went, meeting the reflected eyes shyly, yet smiling with friendly sympathy:

“Silly! to frighten yourself! It is all over now. He’s young and tall and sunburned. I don’t think he knows a great deal–but don’t be frightened, he is not a bit dreadful, … only … it is a pity, … but I suppose he was in love with me, … and, after all, it doesn’t matter, … only I am … sorry … for him…. If he had only cared for a girl who could love him!… I don’t suppose I could, … ever!… But I will be very kind to him, … to make up.”

III

She saw him every day; she dined at the club table now.

Miss Garcide’s hay-fever increased with the ripening summer, and she lay in her room with all the windows closed, sneezing and reading Anthony Trollope.

When Miss Castle told her that Mr. Crawford was a guest at the club, Miss Garcide wept over her for an hour.

“I feel like weeping, too,” said Miss Castle, tremulously–“but not over myself.”

“Dot over hib?” inquired Miss Garcide.

“Yes, over him. He ought to marry a girl who could fall in love with him.”

Meanwhile Crawford was dining every evening with her at the great club table, telling her of the day’s sport, and how a black bear had come splashing across the shallows within a few rods of where he stood fishing, and how the deer had increased, and were even nibbling the succulent green stalks in the kitchen garden after nightfall.

During the day she found herself looking forward to his return and his jolly, spirited stories, always gay and humorous, and never tiresome, technical, nor conceited, although for three years he had held the club cup for the best fish taken on Sagamore water.

She took sun-baths in her hammock; she read novels; she spent hours in reverie, blue eyes skyward, arms under her head, swayed in her hammock by the delicious winds of a perfect June.

All her composure and common-sense had returned. She began to experience a certain feeling of responsibility for Crawford–a feeling almost maternal.

“He’s so amusingly shy about speaking,” she told Miss Garcide; “I suppose he’s anxious and bashful. I think I’ll tell him that it is all arranged. Besides, I promised Mr. Garcide to speak. I don’t see why I don’t; I’m not a bit embarrassed.”

But the days went shining by, and a new week dawned, and Miss Castle had not taken pity upon her tongue-tied lover.

“Oh, this is simply dreadful,” she argued with herself. “Besides, I want to know how soon the man expects to marry me. I’ve a few things to purchase, thank you, and if he thinks a trousseau is thrown together in a day, he’s a–a man!”

That evening she determined to fulfil her promise to Garcide as scrupulously as she kept all her promises.