Part 22 (1/2)

”How long is Sir Basil going to stay here?” Jack asked.

”All summer. He goes to Canada with the Pakenhams, and out to the West, for a glimpse of the changes since he was here years and years ago; and then I want him to come to Vermont, to us. You and Imogen will both get to know him well there. Of course you are coming; Imogen told me that she asked you long ago.”

”Yes; I shall enjoy that immensely,” the young man answered, with, for his own consciousness, a touch of irrepressible gloom. He didn't look forward to the continuation of the drama, to his own lame and merely negative part in it, at the close quarters of a house-party among the Vermont hills.

And as if Valerie bad felt the inner doubt she added suddenly, on a different key, ”You really will enjoy it, won't you?”

He looked up at her. Her face, illuminated by the firelight, though dimmed against the evening blue outside, was turned on him with its sudden intentness and penetration of gaze.

”Why, of course,” he almost stammered, confused by the unexpected scrutiny.

”I shall love having you, you know,” she said.

”I shall love being with you,” he answered, now without a single inner reserve.

Her intentness seemed to soften, there was solicitude and a sort of persuasiveness in it. ”And you will have a much better chance of really adjusting things there--your friends.h.i.+p with Imogen, I mean. The country smoothes things out. Things get sweet and simple.”

He didn't know what to say. Her mistake, if it were one, was so inevitable.

”Imogen will have taken her bearings by then,” she went on. ”She has had so much to get accustomed to, to bear with, poor child; her great bereavement, and--and a mother who, in some ways, must always be a trial to her.”

”Oh, a trial!”--Jack lamely murmured.

”I recognize it, Jack. I think that you do. But when she makes up her mind to me, and discovers that, at all events, I don't interfere with anything that she really cares about, she will be able to take up all her old threads again.”

”I--I suppose so,” Jack murmured.

He had dropped his eyes, for he knew that hers were on him. And now, in a lowered voice, he heard her say, ”Jack, I hope that you will help me with Imogen.”

”Help you? How do you mean?” startled, he looked up.

”You know. Interpret me to her now and then, when you can, with kindliness.

You understand me so much more kindly than she does.”

His eyes fixed on hers, deeply flus.h.i.+ng--”Oh, but,”--he breathed out with almost a long sigh,--”that's what I have done, you see, ever since--”

”Ever since what?”

”Since I came to understand you so much better than she does.”

There was a long pause now and, the firelight flickering low, he could hardly see her face. But he recognized change in her voice as she said: ”You have? I don't mean, you know, taking my side in disputes.”

”I know; I don't mean that, either, though, perhaps, I can't help doing it; for,” said Jack, ”it's on your side that I am, you know.”

The change in her voice, but controlled, kept down, she answered quickly,

”Ah, but, dear Jack, I don't want to have a side. It's that that I want her to realize. I want her to feel that my side is hers. I want you to help me in making her feel it.”