"Oh, then, you mean that you both feel for them in their sorrows and comprehend the machinery of their minds. Well, let me tell you that in regard to the last thing you are wrong. You know nothing of anyone"s mind. You know less about human nature than anybody I have met."
Hollanden looked at her in artless astonishment. He said, "Now, I wonder what made you say that?" This interrogation did not seem to be addressed to her, but was evidently a statement to himself of a problem. He meditated for some moments. Eventually he said, "I suppose you mean that I do not understand you?"
"Why do you suppose I mean that?"
"That"s what a person usually means when he--or she--charges another with not understanding the entire world."
"Well, at any rate, it is not what I mean at all," she said. "I mean that you habitually blunder about other people"s affairs, in the belief, I imagine, that you are a great philanthropist, when you are only making an extraordinary exhibition of yourself."
"The dev----" began Hollanden. Afterward he said, "Now, I wonder what in blue thunder you mean this time?"
"Mean this time? My meaning is very plain, Hollie. I supposed the words were clear enough."
"Yes," he said thoughtfully, "your words were clear enough, but then you were of course referring back to some event, or series of events, in which I had the singular ill fortune to displease you. Maybe you don"t know yourself, and spoke only from the emotion generated by the event, or series of events, in which, as I have said, I had the singular ill fortune to displease you."
"How awf"ly clever!" she said.
"But I can"t recall the event, or series of events, at all," he continued, musing with a scholarly air and disregarding her mockery. "I can"t remember a thing about it. To be sure, it might have been that time when----"
"I think it very stupid of you to hunt for a meaning when I believe I made everything so perfectly clear," she said wrathfully.
"Well, you yourself might not be aware of what you really meant," he answered sagely. "Women often do that sort of thing, you know. Women often speak from motives which, if brought face to face with them, they wouldn"t be able to distinguish from any other thing which they had never before seen."
"Hollie, if there is a disgusting person in the world it is he who pretends to know so much concerning a woman"s mind."
"Well, that"s because they who know, or pretend to know, so much about a woman"s mind are invariably satirical, you understand," said Hollanden cheerfully.
A dog ran frantically across the lawn, his nose high in the air and his countenance expressing vast perturbation and alarm. "Why, Billie forgot to whistle for his dog when he started for home," said Hollanden. "Come here, old man! Well, "e was a nice dog!" The girl also gave invitation, but the setter would not heed them. He spun wildly about the lawn until he seemed to strike his master"s trail, and then, with his nose near to the ground, went down the road at an eager gallop. They stood and watched him.
"Stanley"s a nice dog," said Hollanden.
"Indeed he is!" replied the girl fervently.
Presently Hollanden remarked: "Well, don"t let"s fight any more, particularly since we can"t decide what we"re fighting about. I can"t discover the reason, and you don"t know it, so----"
"I do know it. I told you very plainly."
"Well, all right. Now, this is the way to work that slam: You give the ball a sort of a lift--see!--underhanded and with your arm crooked and stiff. Here, you smash this other ball into the net. Hi! Look out! If you hit it that way you"ll knock it over the hotel. Let the ball drop nearer to the ground. Oh, heavens, not on the ground! Well, it"s hard to do it from the serve, anyhow. I"ll go over to the other court and bat you some easy ones."
Afterward, when they were going toward the inn, the girl suddenly began to laugh.
"What are you giggling at?" said Hollanden.
"I was thinking how furious he would be if he heard you call him a country swain," she rejoined.
"Who?" asked Hollanden.
CHAPTER XVII.
Oglethorpe contended that the men who made the most money from books were the best authors. Hollanden contended that they were the worst.
Oglethorpe said that such a question should be left to the people.
Hollanden said that the people habitually made wrong decisions on questions that were left to them. "That is the most odiously aristocratic belief," said Oglethorpe.
"No," said Hollanden, "I like the people. But, considered generally, they are a collection of ingenious blockheads."
"But they read your books," said Oglethorpe, grinning.
"That is through a mistake," replied Hollanden.
As the discussion grew in size it incited the close attention of the Worcester girls, but Miss Fanhall did not seem to hear it. Hawker, too, was staring into the darkness with a gloomy and preoccupied air.
"Are you sorry that this is your last evening at Hemlock Inn?" said the painter at last, in a low tone.
"Why, yes--certainly," said the girl.
Under the sloping porch of the inn the vague orange light from the parlours drifted to the black wall of the night.
"I shall miss you," said the painter.
"Oh, I dare say," said the girl.
Hollanden was lecturing at length and wonderfully. In the mystic s.p.a.ces of the night the pines could be heard in their weird monotone, as they softly smote branch and branch, as if moving in some solemn and sorrowful dance.
"This has been quite the most delightful summer of my experience," said the painter.
"I have found it very pleasant," said the girl.
From time to time Hawker glanced furtively at Oglethorpe, Hollanden, and the Worcester girl. This glance expressed no desire for their well-being.
"I shall miss you," he said to the girl again. His manner was rather desperate. She made no reply, and, after leaning toward her, he subsided with an air of defeat.
Eventually he remarked: "It will be very lonely here again. I dare say I shall return to New York myself in a few weeks."
"I hope you will call," she said.
"I shall be delighted," he answered stiffly, and with a dissatisfied look at her.
"Oh, Mr. Hawker," cried the younger Worcester girl, suddenly emerging from the cloud of argument which Hollanden and Oglethorpe kept in the air, "won"t it be sad to lose Grace? Indeed, I don"t know what we shall do. Sha"n"t we miss her dreadfully?"
"Yes," said Hawker, "we shall of course miss her dreadfully."
"Yes, won"t it be frightful?" said the elder Worcester girl. "I can"t imagine what we will do without her. And Hollie is only going to spend ten more days. Oh, dear! mamma, I believe, will insist on staying the entire summer. It was papa"s orders, you know, and I really think she is going to obey them. He said he wanted her to have one period of rest at any rate. She is such a busy woman in town, you know."
"Here," said Hollanden, wheeling to them suddenly, "you all look as if you were badgering Hawker, and he looks badgered. What are you saying to him?"