After the Westchester afternoon there were two dinners with Flood as
host; and do what she would, she could not altogether escape his daily,
almost hourly attentions, without wounding his feelings and her own.
He did nothing she might not accept without in the least seeming to
bind herself by any obligation; the very intensity of his love urged
him to caution. But when he suggested to Cecilia that, since her
sister had decided to go down by train, he should perhaps be going as
far as Washington on the same day, he would have divined Cecilia better
if he had not been so absorbed in his dreams of Rosamund; for Mrs.
Maxwell's ambitions had enlarged since early summer, and she did not
hesitate to divulge his plan. Rosamund was to have taken the
Congressional; instead, she slipped away at nine o'clock; so anxious
was she to put distance between herself and Flood, that she would not
even wait for Eleanor.
On the way down, she wondered at something in Cecilia's expression when
she had made known her intention of running away from Flood's
companionship, but there was too much else in her mind to permit of her
spending much thought upon those she had just left; there was a warmth
in her heart as of the traveler's returning to the land of his
affection. She had called New York her home for most of her life, and
lived in the mountains three months; yet behind her she left little
that she loved, and before her lay smiling fields of imagination; and
she found the vision sweet. She planned the placing of the furniture
in the little house, made out a list of the things that should go in
each room, and wondered what she had forgotten. She was carrying
little presents back with her, and she took them out of her bag, opened
their boxes to make sure they were quite right, put them back into
their wrappings, and with the pencil on her chatelaine wrote messages
on each. Only for Ogilvie she had no gift; she had spent more time in
hunting something for him than in choosing her dining-room furniture,
and had come away with--nothing! There was really nothing in all New
York that she could take back to the doctor!
When he met her at the little station in the October darkness of early
evening, she looked about for Yetta and Tim.
"I thought you would bring the children to welcome me!" she exclaimed,
and was glad that she had it to say.
But the doctor, who was walking beside her with her small hand bag,
only said, quietly, "No, you didn't!" and Rosamund's cheeks burned as
he helped her to her place behind White Rosy.
He asked her about her days in the city, but she had little to say of
them; what interested her now was the new home she was going to make.
As they approached it she peered through the darkness at the little
brown cottage, and they stopped for a moment to make sure that Mother
Cary's light could be seen from there. She told him that Mrs. Reeves
was going to be with her, and that she had arranged with the Charities
to keep Timmy for a while longer; of the possible adoption she said
nothing, having bound Eleanor also to silence, ignoring the question in
his eyes. When she spoke of her hope of having Grace live with them,
the doctor's face became grave.
"It would be the best thing in the world for Grace, in one way, and
perhaps for you; but--I am not thinking of anything specific--but Joe
Tobet, if angered, might be a dangerous enemy. If he should resent
Grace's defection, and blame it on you----"
Rosamund laughed. "Oh, but I am not in the least afraid of any Joe
Tobets, you know!" she said. "What on earth could he do to me?"
"I suppose you mean what could a man of his class do to injure a woman
of yours?"