She shook her head.
"Oh, no," she said quickly. "--If you mean that I am superior in any way to the people of Brookville; I"m not, at all. I am really a very ordinary sort of a person. I"ve not been to college and--I"ve always worked, harder than most, so that I"ve had little opportunity for--culture."
His smile broadened into a laugh of genuine amus.e.m.e.nt.
"My dear Miss Orr," he protested, "I had no idea of intimating--"
Her look of pa.s.sionate sincerity halted his words of apology.
"I am very much interested in the people here," she declared. "I want--oh, so much--to be friends with them! I want it more than anything else in the world! If they would only like me. But--they don"t."
"How can they help it?" he exclaimed. "Like you? They ought to worship you! They shall!"
She shook her head sadly.
"No one can compel love," she said.
"Sometimes the love of one can atone for the indifference--even the hostility of the many," he ventured.
But she had not stooped to the particular, he perceived. Her thoughts were ranging wide over an unknown country whither, for the moment, he could not follow. He studied her abstracted face with its strangely aloof expression, like that of a saint or a fanatic, with a faint renewal of previous misgivings.
"I am very much interested in f.a.n.n.y Dodge," she said abruptly.
"In--f.a.n.n.y Dodge?" he repeated.
He became instantly angry with himself for the dismayed astonishment he had permitted to escape him, and increasingly so because of the uncontrollable tide of crimson which invaded his face.
She was looking at him, with the calm, direct gaze which had more than once puzzled him.
"You know her very well, don"t you?"
"Why, of course, Miss Dodge is--she is--er--one of our leading young people, and naturally-- She plays our little organ in church and Sunday School. Of course you"ve noticed. She is most useful and--er--helpful."
Lydia appeared to be considering his words with undue gravity.
"But I didn"t come here this morning to talk to you about another woman," he said, with undeniable hardihood. "I want to talk to you--_to you_--and what I have to say--"
Lydia got up from her chair rather suddenly.
"Please excuse me a moment," she said, quite as if he had not spoken.
He heard her cross the hall swiftly. In a moment she had returned.
"I found this picture on the floor--after they had gone," she said, and handed him the photograph.
He stared at it with unfeigned astonishment.
"Oh, yes," he murmured. "Well--?"
"Turn it over," she urged, somewhat breathlessly.
He obeyed, and bit his lip angrily.
"What of it?" he demanded. "A quotation from Kipling"s Recessional--a mere commonplace.... Yes; I wrote it."
Then his anger suddenly left him. His mind had leaped to the solution of the matter, and the solution appeared to Wesley Elliot as eminently satisfying; it was even amusing. What a transparent, womanly little creature she was, to be sure! He had not been altogether certain of himself as he walked out to the old Bolton place that morning. But oddly enough, this girlish jealousy of hers, this pretty spite--he found it piquantly charming.
"I wrote it," he repeated, his indulgent understanding of her mood lurking in smiling lips and eyes, "on the occasion of a particularly grubby Sunday School picnic: I a.s.sure you I shall not soon forget the spiders which came to an untimely end in my lemonade, nor the inquisitive ants which explored my sandwiches."
She surveyed him unsmilingly.
"But you did not mean that," she said. "You were thinking of something--quite different."
He frowned thoughtfully. Decidedly, this matter should be settled between them at once and for ever. A clergyman, he reflected, must always be on friendly--even confidential terms with a wide variety of women. His brief experience had already taught him this much. And a jealous or unduly suspicious wife might prove a serious handicap to future success.
"Won"t you sit down," he urged. "I--You must allow me to explain.
We--er--must talk this over."
She obeyed him mechanically. All at once she was excessively frightened at what she had attempted. She knew nothing of the ways of men; but she felt suddenly sure that he would resent her interference as an unwarrantable impertinence.
"I thought--if you were going there today--you might take it--to her," she hesitated. "Or, I could send it. It is a small matter, of course."
"I think," he said gravely, "that it is a very serious matter."
She interpreted uncertainly the intent gaze of his beautiful, somber eyes.
"I came here," she faltered, "to--to find a home. I had no wish--"
"I understand," he said, his voice deep and sympathetic; "people have been talking to you--about me. Am I right?"
She was silent, a pink flush slowly staining her cheeks.
"You have not yet learned upon what slight premises country women, of the type we find in Brookville, arrive at the most unwarrantable conclusions," he went on carefully. "I did not myself sufficiently realize this, at first. I may have been unwise."
"No, you were not!" she contradicted him unexpectedly.
His lifted eyebrows expressed surprise.
"I wish you would explain to me--" he began.
Then stopped short. How indeed could she explain, when as yet he had not made clear to her his own purpose, which had grown steadily with the pa.s.sing weeks?
"You will let me speak, first," he concluded inadequately.
He hastily reviewed the various phrases which arose to his lips and rejected them one by one. There was some peculiar quality of coldness, of reserve--he could not altogether make it clear to himself: it might well be the knowledge of her power, her wealth, which lent that almost austere expression to her face. It was evident that her wonted composure had been seriously disturbed by the unlucky circ.u.mstance of the photograph. He had permitted the time and occasion which had prompted him to write those three fatefully familiar words on the back of the picture altogether to escape him.
If he chose to forget, why should f.a.n.n.y Dodge, or any one else, persist in remembering?
And above all, why should the girl have chosen to drop this absurd memento of the most harmless of flirtations at the feet of Lydia?