Cynthia came back in time to go into the dining-room and see that all was
in order there for supper before the door opened. The waitresses knew
that she had been out riding, as they called it, with Jeff Durgin; the
fact had spread electrically to them where they sat in a shady angle of
the hotel listening to one who read a novel aloud, and skipped all but
the most exciting love parts. They conjectured that the pair had gone to
Lovewell, but they knew nothing more, and the subtlest of them would not
have found reason for further conjecture in Cynthia's behavior, when she
came in and scanned the tables and the girls' dresses and hair, where
they stood ranged against the wall. She was neither whiter nor redder
than usual, and her nerves and her tones were under as good control as a
girl's ever are after she has been out riding with a fellow. It was not
such a great thing, anyway, to ride with Jeff Durgin. First and last,
nearly all the young lady boarders had been out with him, upon one errand
or another to Lovewell.
After supper, when the girls had gone over to their rooms in the helps'
quarters, and the guests had gathered in the wide, low office, in the
light of the fire kindled on the hearth to break the evening chill, Jeff
joined Cynthia in her inspection of the dining-room. She always gave it a
last look, to see that it was in perfect order for breakfast, before she
went home for the night. Jeff went home with her; he was impatient of her
duties, but he was in no hurry when they stole out of the side door
together under the stars, and began to stray sidelong down the hill over
the dewless grass.
He lingered more and more as they drew near her father's house, in the
abandon of a man's love. He wished to give himself solely up to it, to
think and to talk of nothing else, after a man's fashion. But a woman's
love is no such mere delight. It is serious, practical. For her it is all
future, and she cannot give herself wholly up to any present moment of
it, as a man does.
"Now, Jeff," she said, after a certain number of partings, in which she
had apparently kept his duty clearly in mind, "you had better go home and
tell your mother."
"Oh, there's time enough for that," he began.
"I want you to tell her right away, or there won't be anything to tell."
"Is that so?" he joked back. "Well, if I must, I must, I suppose. But I
didn't think you'd take the whip-hand so soon, Cynthia."
"Oh, I don't ever want to take the whip-hand with you, Jeff. Don't make
me!"
"Well, I won't, then. But what are you in such a hurry to have mother
know for? She's not going to object. And if she does--"
"It isn't that," said the girl, quickly. "If I had to go round a single
day with your mother hiding this from her, I should begin to hate you. I
couldn't bear the concealment. I shall tell father as soon as I go in."
"Oh, your father 'll be all right, of course."
"Yes, he'll be all right, but if he wouldn't, and I knew it, I should
have to tell him, all the same. Now, good-night. Well, there, then; and
there! Now, let me go!"
She paused for a moment in her own room, to smooth her tumbled hair, and
try to identify herself in her glass. Then she went into the
sitting-room, where she found her father pulled up to the table, with his
hat on, and poring over a sheet of hieroglyphics, which represented the
usual evening with planchette.
"Have you been to help Jackson up?" she asked.
"Well, I wanted to, but he wouldn't hear of it. He's feelin' ever so much
better to-night, and he wanted to go alone. I just come in."
"Yes, you've got your hat on yet."
Whitwell put his hand up and found that his daughter was right. He
laughed, and said: "I guess I must 'a' forgot it. We've had the most
interestin' season with plantchette that I guess we've about ever had.
She's said something here--"
"Well, never mind; I've got something more important to say than
plantchette has," said Cynthia, and she pulled the sheet away from under
her father's eyes.