"What a clear night it is!" said Flint, stepping out from the shadows.
Winifred started a little. "I thought you were sitting by the fire,"
she said rather abruptly.
"Indeed," Flint answered. It was one of his peculiarities never to be drawn on to the explanations to which most people are driven by the mere necessity of saying something. After all, he had as good a right to the place where he was as Miss Anstice herself. Miss Anstice perhaps was thinking the same thought, for she made no response, only stood twisting and untwisting a bit of lawn handkerchief which bade fair to be worn out before it reached home. At length, with the air of one nerving herself to a difficult task, she turned about and faced Flint. Lifting her clear gray eyes full to his, she began hesitatingly:--
"Mr. Flint."
"Yes, Miss Anstice."
"Will you do me a favor?"
"a.s.suredly."
"No, not an "a.s.suredly" favor, but a real favor."
"If I can."
"Will you do it blindly?"
"No, I will do it with my eyes open."
"You cannot."
"Try me!"
The girl shifted her eyes from his face to the path of moon beams in which Leonard"s boat floated far off like a dark speck against the ripples of light. When she went on, it was in a lower tone, with a note in her voice which Flint had never heard there before,--the note of appeal.
"I am going to ask you a very strange thing," she said; "I would not ask it if I could see any other way."
"Surely, Miss Anstice, you cannot doubt my willingness to oblige you in any way. You have only to command me."
"But it is not to oblige me. It is--oh, dear! I can"t explain, but I want you to go away."
Flint rose instantly.
"No, no, not away from this spot, but from Nepaug. That"s it," she went on insistently; "I want you to leave Nepaug."
Flint stared at her for a moment, as if in doubt whether to question her sanity or her seriousness. The latter he could not doubt, as he looked at her eager att.i.tude, her hands tightly interlaced, her head bent a little forward, and a spot of deep red sharply outlined on either cheek. Suddenly the meaning of her conversation with Leonard flashed across his mind; but it brought only further puzzlement. He motioned Winifred to sit down upon the great tree which lay its length on the earth, overthrown by the last storm, and with stones and upturned dirt still clinging to its branching roots.
"Are you sure," he said gravely, as he took a seat beside her,--"are you sure that you are doing right to keep me in the dark?"
"I think so; I hope so."
"Of course I know you would not ask such a thing if there were not something serious back of it all; and since it so nearly concerns me, it seems to me I have a right to know it."
Dead silence reigned for some minutes. Then Winifred said, speaking low and hurriedly:
"Yes, you are right; I ought to tell you,--I know I ought; but it is so hard. Why isn"t it Mr. Brady! He would understand."
"Perhaps if you would explain," Flint began with unusual patience.
"Well, then, it is about Tilly Marsden, who has been engaged these two years to Leonard Davitt; and now she refuses to marry him, and he thinks it is because she is in love with someone else. _Surely_ you understand _now_."
"No, upon my soul, I don"t. You can"t mean that the little shop-girl--the maid-of-all-work at the inn--is--thinks she is in love with--"
"With you; exactly."
"But I have hardly spoken to her."
The silence which followed implied that the situation was none the less likely on that account. The implication tinged Flint"s manner with irritation.
"I suppose I am very dull; but I confess I don"t understand these people."
"Have you ever tried to understand them?" returned Winifred, with a sudden outburst of the indignation which had long been gathering in her heart against the man before her.
"Haven"t you always thought of them only as they ministered to your comfort, like the other farm animals? Is it really anything to you that this narrow-minded girl has conceived a very silly, but none the less unhappy, sentiment for you?"
"I--" began Flint, but the flood would have its way.
"Oh, yes, it annoys you, I dare say. You feel your dignity a little touched by it; but does it move your pity, your chivalry? If it does--Oh, go away!"
Flint would have given much to feel a fever heat of anger, to flame out against the audacity of the girl with an indignation overtopping her own; but he only felt himself growing more cold and rigid. He told himself that she had misunderstood him hopelessly, utterly. There was a certain aggrieved satisfaction in the thought. He had risen, and stood leaning against a tree. Winifred wondered at her own courage, as she saw him standing there stiff and haughty.
"I shall go, of course," he said at length. "My absence seems to be the only sure method of producing universal content. But let me ask you one question before I go. Do you consider me to blame in this unlucky business?"
Winifred parried the question by another.
"Why should I tell you, when you don"t care in the least what I think?"
"If I did not, I should not ask you, and I think I have a right to demand an answer."
"I can hardly answer you fairly. Is ice to blame for being ice and not sun? We cannot say. We only know that we are chilled. I always have the feeling that with those you consider your equals, you might be genial and responsive; but the joys and sorrows of the great world of uninteresting, commonplace people about you have no power to touch your sympathies. Of course, in a way, it is not your fault that you never noticed Tilly Marsden"s manner--"
"I am not a cad who goes about investigating the sentiments of--of women like that. But you have your impressions of my character fully formed, and I shall not be guilty of the folly of trying to change them. To-morrow, I shall relieve Nepaug of my objectionable presence, and, I hope, you will cease to fear me as a disturbing element when I am far away at my office-desk."
"You are going back to New York?" echoed Winifred, uncertainly, realizing all of a sudden what it was that she was sending him away from, and to what she was consigning him.
"Yes, of course," Flint answered a little impatiently.
"I am sorry," the girl began lamely. It was just dawning upon her that it was not so easy to control the destinies of other people, as she had fancied.
"Oh, that is all right!" her companion responded more cheerfully; "New York in summer is not half so bad as you people who never stay there probably imagine."
"I don"t know," said Winifred; "to me it seems dreadful to be shut up inside brick walls, or walking on hot paving-stones, when one might be sitting under green trees, or by rolling waves, breathing in the fresh country air. But I suppose I feel so because while I was growing up I never lived in a large city."
"Indeed! How was that? I should think your father"s profession would have kept him in the city."
"Oh, it does now, of course; but for years after my mother"s death he was so broken down that he could not bear to mix with people at all, and he chose to bury himself out on a Western ranch, and there I grew up with no more training than the little Indian girls who used to come to the house with beads and things to sell. It was a queer life for a girl; but it was great sport."