That afternoon Westover saw Jeff helping Cynthia Whitwell into his
buckboard, and then, after his lively horse had made some paces of a
start, spring to the seat beside her, and bring it to a stand. "Can I do
anything for you over at Lovewell, Mr. Westover?" he called, and he
smiled toward the painter. Then he lightened the reins on the mare's
back; she squared herself for a start in earnest, and flashed down the
sloping hotel road to the highway below, and was lost to sight in the
clump of woods to the southward.
"That's a good friend of yours, Cynthy," he said, leaning toward the girl
with a simple comfort in her proximity. She was dressed in a pale-pink
color, with a hat of yet paler pink; without having a great deal of
fashion, she had a good deal of style. She looked bright and fresh; there
was a dash of pink in her cheeks, which suggested the color of the
sweetbrier, its purity and sweetness, and if there was something in
Cynthia's character and temperament that suggested its thorns too, one
still could not deny that she was like that flower. She liked to shop,
and she liked to ride after a good horse, as the neighbors would have
said; she was going over to Lovewell to buy a number of things, and Jeff
Durgin was driving her there with the swift mare that was his peculiar
property. She smiled upon him without the usual reservations she
contrived to express in her smiles.
"Well, I don't know anybody I'd rather have for my friend than Mr.
Westover." She added: "He acted like a friend the very first time I saw
him."
Jeff laughed with shameless pleasure in the reminiscence her words
suggested. "Well, I did get my come-uppings that time. And I don't know
but he's been a pretty good friend to me, too. I'm not sure he likes me;
but Mr. Westover is a man that could be your friend if he didn't like
you."
"What have you done to make him like you?" asked the girl.
"Nothing!" said Jeff, with a shout of laughter in his conviction. "I've
done a lot of things to make him despise me from the start. But if you
like a person yourself, you want him to like you whether you deserve it
or not."
"I don't know as I do."
"You say that because you always deserve it. You can't tell how it is
with a fellow like me. I should want you to like me, Cynthy, whatever you
thought of me." He looked round into her face, but she turned it away.
They had struck the level, long for the hill country, at the foot of the
hotel road, and the mare, that found herself neither mounting nor
descending a steep, dropped from the trot proper for an acclivity into a
rapid walk.
"This mare can walk like a Kentucky horse," said Jeff. "I believe I could
teach her single-foot." He added, with a laugh, "If I knew how," and now
Cynthia laughed with him.
"I was just going to say that."
"Yes, you don't lose many chances to give me a dig, do you?"
"Oh, I don't know as I look for them. Perhaps I don't need to." The pine
woods were deep on either side. They whispered in the thin, sweet wind,
and gave out their odor in the high, westering sun. They covered with
their shadows the road that ran velvety between them.
"This is nice," said Jeff, letting himself rest against the back of the
seat. He stretched his left arm along the top, and presently it dropped
and folded itself about the waist of the girl.
"You may take your arm away, Jeff," she said, quietly.
"Why?"
"Because it has no right there, for one thing!" She drew herself a little
aside and looked round at him. "You wouldn't put it round a town girl if
you were riding with her."
"I shouldn't be riding with her: Girls don't go buggy-riding in town any
more," said Jeff, brutally.
"Then I shall know what to do the next time you ask me."
"Oh, they'd go quick enough if I asked them up here in the country.
Etiquette don't count with them when they're on a vacation."
"I'm not on a vacation; so it counts with me. Please take your arm away,"
said Cynthia.
"Oh, all right. But I shouldn't object to your putting your arm around
me."
"You will never have the chance."
"Why are you so hard on me, Cynthy?" asked Jeff. "You didn't used to be
so."
"People change."
"Do I?"
"Not for the better."
Jeff was dumb. She was pleased with her hit, and laughed. But her laugh
did not encourage him to put his arm round her again. He let the mare
walk on, and left her to resume the conversation at whatever point she
would.
She made no haste to resume it. At last she said, with sufficient
apparent remoteness from the subject they had dropped: "Jeff, I don't
know whether you want me to talk about it. But I guess I ought to, even
if it isn't my place exactly. I don't think Jackson's very well, this
summer."