Part 38 (2/2)
”I think you are working too hard.” She looked at him with anxious solicitude. ”I've a good notion to put you on b.u.t.termilk again.”
”Good work! Put me on anything you like except dried peaches and wienies.”
”And you need more recreation,” Rose persisted. ”It's not good for anybody to work all day and go to school at night. What's the matter with us getting Ca.s.s and Fan Loomis and going down to Fontaine Ferry to-night?”
”Can't do it,” said Quin with ill-concealed pride. ”Got a date with Miss Eleanor Bartlett.”
Rose sat silent for a moment, stirring the dead leaves with her shabby boot; then she turned and laid her hand on his shoulder.
”Quin,” she said, ”I am worried sick about Nell and Harold Phipps.”
Quin, who had been trying to beguile a squirrel into believing that a pebble was a nut, looked up sharply.
”What do you mean?” he said. ”She hasn't seen him since last summer, and she never mentions his name.”
”_Don't_ she? She hardly talks about anything else. She writes to him all the time and wears his picture in her watch!”
”Do you know that?”
”Of course I know it. She can't talk about him at home, so she pours it all out to me.”
”But haven't you told her what you know about him?”
”I've hinted at it, but she won't believe me because she knows I hate him. I wanted to tell her about what he said to me, and about that nurse he got into trouble out at the hospital; but I was afraid it might make an awful row and spoil everything for Papa Claude.”
”I don't care who it spoils things for! She's got to be told.” Quin's eyes were blazing.
”But perhaps if we leave it alone he'll get tired of her. They say he keeps after a girl until he gets her engaged to him, then drops her.”
”He'd never drop Miss Nell. No man would. He'd be trying to marry her.”
”But what can we _do?_ The more people talk about him, the more she's going to take up for him. That's Nell all over.”
”Couldn't Mr. Martel----”
”Papa Claude's as much taken in as she is. You remember the night over home when he talked about his lovely detached soul? He never sees the truth about anybody.”
”Well, he's going to see the truth about this. If you don't write to him to-night and tell him the kind of man Mr. Phipps is, I will!”
”Wait till to-morrow. I'll have another round with Nell. I've got some proof that I think she'll have to believe.”
Quin rose restlessly. He wanted to go to the Bartletts' at once, if only to stand guard at the gate against the danger that threatened Eleanor.
”Aren't you coming home to supper?” asked Rose.
”No,” he said absently; ”I don't want any supper.”
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