After three weeks the Captain was up and around again. He dragged his
left foot, and his left arm was uncertain. Though he recovered his
speech, it was thick and clouded; some words he could not pronounce
distinctly,--slid over them, dropped out a syllable. Therefore he
avoided talking even more than was his habit. The doctor said that
unless another brain lesion occurred, he might get on comfortably for
some years yet.
In August Niel was to go to Boston to begin coaching for his entrance
examinations at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he
meant to study architecture. He put off bidding the Forresters good-bye
until the very day before he left. His last call was different from any
he had ever made there before. Already they began to treat him like a
young man. He sat rather stiffly in that parlour where he had been so
much at home. The Captain was in his big chair in the bay window, in the
full glow of the afternoon sun, saying little, but very friendly. Mrs.
Forrester, on the sofa in the shadowy corner of the room, talked about
Niel's plans and his journey.
"Is it true that Mary is going to marry Pucelik this fall?" he asked
her. "Who will you get to help you?"
"No one, for the present. Ben will do all I can't do. Never mind us. We
will pass a quiet winter, like an old country couple,--as we are!" she
said lightly.
Niel knew that she faced the winter with terror, but he had never seen
her more in command of herself,--or more the mistress of her own house
than now, when she was preparing to become the servant of it. He had the
feeling, which he never used to have, that her lightness cost her
something.
"Don't forget us, but don't mope. Make lots of new friends. You'll never
be twenty again. Take a chorus girl out to supper--a pretty one, mind!
Don't bother about your allowance. If you got into a scrape, we could
manage a little cheque to help you out, couldn't we, Mr. Forrester?"
The Captain puffed and looked amused. "I think we could, Niel, I think
so. Don't get up, my boy. You must stay to dinner."
Niel said he couldn't. He hadn't finished packing, and he was leaving on
the morning train.
"Then we must have a little something before you go." Captain Forrester
rose heavily, with the aid of his cane, and went into the dining-room.
He brought back the decanter and filled three glasses with ceremony.
Lifting his glass, he paused, as always, and blinked.
"Happy days!"
"Happy days!" echoed Mrs. Forrester, with her loveliest smile, "and
every success to Niel!"
Both the Captain and his wife came to the door with him, and stood there
on the porch together, where he had so often seen them stand to speed
the parting guest. He went down the hill touched and happy. As he passed
over the bridge his spirits suddenly fell. Would that chilling doubt
always lie in wait for him, down there in the mud, where he had thrown
his roses one morning?
He burned to ask her one question, to get the truth out of her and set
his mind at rest: What did she do with all her exquisiteness when she
was with a man like Ellinger? Where did she put it away? And having put
it away, how could she recover herself, and give one--give even him--the
sense of tempered steel, a blade that could fence with anyone and never
break?