"And so glad to see me go away from dinner!"
"I didn"t say that."
"You will--" said Mr. Linden,--"I can imagine you falling back in your chair and exclaiming, "Ah, quand voulez-vous partir, monsieur!"--which of course will make it extremely difficult for me to remain a moment longer."
"I don"t think you can imagine me doing it," said Faith laughing. "I can"t imagine myself."
"That proves nothing. Only don"t ever say to me, "Monsieur! partez a l"instant!"--because--"
"Because what, Mr. Linden?" said Faith seriously.
"Because we might disagree upon that point," he said with rather a demure arch of his eyebrows. Faith"s full silver rang out, softly.
"You see!" she said. "It"s beginning already. I don"t know in the least what you are talking about!"
"No--you do not," was the laughing reply. "But Miss Faith, if I am kept at home long enough, and society keeps at home too, instead of coming between us and our exercises, those conversations will seem less terrible by the time they begin. I should certainly get you a pocket dictionary, but I prefer to be that myself. How far can you ride on horseback at once?"
"On horseback?" said Faith, much as if those words had been also French, or an algebraical puzzle.
"That was what I said."
"I know that was what you said--I didn"t know what you meant, Mr.
Linden. I have never been really on horseback but a few times in my life--then I rode a few miles--I don"t know exactly how many."
"I wonder people don"t do it more"--said Mrs. Derrick. "When I was a girl that was the common way of getting about; and n.o.body ever got thrown, neither."
"Wouldn"t that be the pleasantest way of getting to Mattabeeset?" said Mr. Linden.
An illumination answered him first; then "Oh, yes!"
"I want you to see what is to be seen over there," he said,--"shall we go some day, if I get well enough before cold weather?"
Faith"s quiet words of agreeing to this proposal were declared to be a sham by her eyes, cheeks, lips and brow, every one of which was giving testimony after a different fashion.
At this moment the door opened. It happened that Dr. Harrison had encountered Cindy at the hall door, where she was either loitering to catch s.n.a.t.c.hes of indoor conversation, or waiting to entrap Jem Waters.
But there she was, and being asked for Mr. Linden replied that he was down stairs, and without more ceremony ushered the doctor in; and entering the whole view lay before him in its freshness. Mrs. Derrick, complacent and comfortable, sat behind the no-longer-wanted tea-tray, listening and playing with a spoon. Faith"s face, though considering her unfinished m.u.f.fin, was brilliant with rosy pleasure; while the fire which she had for some time forgotten to mend, lay in a state of powerful inaction, a ma.s.s of living coals and smoking brands. In the glow of that stood the easy chair, and therein Mr. Linden, although with the air and att.i.tude of one wanting both rest and strength, was considering with rather unbent lips no less a subject than--One and Somewhat!--further the doctor"s eyes could not read. The precise direction of those other eyes was shaded. The doctor came up and stood beside them.
"Did I order you to stay up stairs?" he said in soft, measured syllables, without having spoken to anybody else.
"Good evening, doctor!" said Mr. Linden offering his hand. "As I meet you half way, please excuse me for keeping my seat."
From that hand, the doctor pa.s.sed to Faith"s; which was taken and held, just enough to say all he wished to say; which, be it remarked in pa.s.sing, was a good deal.
"May I approach Mrs. Derrick?" said he then, turning round to Mr.
Linden with a cool, funny, careless, yet good-humoured, doubt upon his face.
"What is the present state of your nerves?"
"Depending upon your answer, of course!--which the ordinary rules of society forbid me to wait for. Madam!--are you in sufficient charity with me to give me a cup of tea?"
"Yes, doctor--if the tea"s good enough," said Mrs. Derrick with her usual quietness. "And if it isn"t I"ll have some more." So saying she got up and went towards the kitchen to call Cindy. The doctor skilfully intercepted this movement, placing himself in her way.
"May I ask, where you are going?" he said with a sort of gentle kindliness he did not always put on.
"Why to get some tea that"s fit to give you, doctor. I don"t think this is."
"Will you give me something else?"
"I"ll give you that first," said Mrs. Derrick--"I"ll see about the rest." And pa.s.sing out into the kitchen she gave her orders about the teapot, and a quiet little injunction to Faith to go in and sit down.
"Mother, you"re tired," said Faith. "Let me see about the tea!"
"I guess I will!" said Mrs. Derrick. "I"m not going to have the house stand up on one end just because Dr. Harrison wants his tea. You go off, pretty child,--if you stay here he"ll think you"re baking m.u.f.fins for him, and I don"t choose he should."
"Why I would do it, mother," said Faith. She went off, however, into the other room and sat down gravely, quite the other side of the fireplace from the tea-table. Dr. Harrison was standing on the rug with his back to the fire, and followed her with his eye.
"How do you do?" he said in a softened voice, stepping a step nearer to her. She looked up and gave him a frank and kind "very well!"
Was it altogether professional, the way in which he took up her hand and held it an instant?
"Cool, and quiet," he said. "It"s all right. I didn"t frighten you out of your wits yesterday?"
The "no, sir," was in a different tone.
"Do you suppose," he said, "that your mother will ever bear the sight of me again?"
"Why I hope so, sir," said Faith smiling.
"I don"t know!" he said. "I wonder if I have been so much more wicked than I knew of? I don"t think I have. I couldn"t have punished myself any more."
Mrs. Derrick came in, followed by teapot and m.u.f.fins, and having with her usual politeness requested the doctor to take a seat at the table, she proceeded to pour him out a cup of tea, nor even stinted him in sugar.
"If I stay at home according to your orders," said Mr. Linden, "I shall have all the trustees after me."
"You aren"t just the person they ought to be after," said the doctor.
"Mrs. Derrick, I don"t know why we never have anything at our house so good as this." The doctor was discussing a b.u.t.tered m.u.f.fin with satisfaction that was evidently unfeigned.
Mrs. Derrick knew why--but she wouldn"t tell him, though exulting in her own knowledge. A low knock at the parlour door announced Reuben Taylor.
"I beg your pardon, Mrs. Derrick--" he said,--"but I went"--
"I am here, Reuben," said Mr. Linden.
The boy stayed not for more compliments then, but pa.s.sing the ladies and the doctor with a collective bow, and "good evening, Miss Faith,"
went round with a quick step and a glad face to Mr. Linden. And kneeling down by him, with one hand on his shoulder, gave him the post despatches, and asked and answered questions not very loud but very earnestly. That was a phasis of Reuben Dr. Harrison had not seen before. He took good and broad note of it, though nothing interrupted the doctor"s m.u.f.fin--or m.u.f.fins, for they were plural. Neither did he interrupt anything that was going on.
"Are you better, sir? are you really well enough to be down stairs?"--Dr. Harrison would hardly have known the voice. And the answering tone was of the gentlest and kindest, though the words failed to reach the doctor"s ears. Some directions, or commissions, apparently, Mr. Linden gave for a few minutes, and then Reuben rose to his feet with a long breath that spoke a mind very much relieved. He paused for a moment on his way out, opposite Faith, as if he wanted a word in that quarter; but perhaps the doctor"s presence forbade, for all the congratulation that Reuben gave her was in his face and bow.
That did not satisfy Faith if it did him. She jumped up and gave him her hand, almost affectionately.