"Why," he had said to Bertha, "should I waste my vital energies in endeavoring to persuade a man that I am what he wants, when perhaps I am not? There are scores of people who will naturally please him better than I do, and there are people enough who please me better than he does. Let him take his choice,—and it is easy enough to see that I am not his choice."
"What is he thinking of now, I wonder?" he said, a vague plan for turning into another walk flitting through his mind. "Are his friends, the Piutes, on the war-path and actively engaged in dissecting agents, or is he simply out of humor? He is not thinking of where he is going. He will walk over that nursemaid and obliterate the twins—yes, I thought so."
[Pg 124]
The colonel had verified his prophecy, and, aroused from his reverie by the devastation he had caused, he came to a stand-still with a perplexed and distressed countenance.
"I beg your pardon," Arbuthnot heard him say, in his great, deep voice. "I hope I did not hurt you. I had forgotten where I was." And he stooped and set the nearest twin on its feet on the grass and then did the same thing for the other, upon which both stood and stared at him, and, not being hurt at all, having merely rolled over on the sod, were in sufficiently good spirits to regard with interest the fact that he was fumbling in his coat-pocket for something.
The article in question was a package of bonbons, which he produced and gave to the nearest toddler.
"Here!" he said. "I bought these for another little girl, but I can get some more. They are all right," he added, turning to the mulatto girl, whose admiration of his martial bearing revealed itself in a most lenient grin,—"they won\'t hurt them. They can eat them all without being harmed."
And then he turned away, and in doing so caught sight of Arbuthnot, and, somewhat to the surprise of the latter, advanced toward him at once with the evident intention of joining him.
"It is rather a curious thing that I should meet you here," he said. "I was thinking of you when I met with the catastrophe you saw just now. Do you often go home this way?"
"Not very often," Arbuthnot replied. "Sometimes, when things look as they do now," with a gesture indicating the brilliant verdure.
"Everything looks very fresh and luxuriant," said Tredennis. "The season is unusually far advanced, I suppose. It is sometimes a great deal too warm to be pleasant."
"It will be decidedly warmer every day," said Arbuthnot. "We shall have a trying summer. The[Pg 125] President is going out to the Soldiers\' Home next week—which is earlier than usual. There are only two or three of the senators\' families left in the city. The exodus began weeks ago."
"Such weather as we have had the last few days," said the colonel, with his slight frown, "must be very exhausting to those who are not strong, and who have gone through a gay winter."
"The best thing such people can do," responded Arbuthnot, dryly, "is to make their way to the mountains or the sea as soon as possible. Most of them do."
Tredennis\' reply was characteristically abrupt.
"Mrs. Amory does not," he said.
"No," answered Arbuthnot, and he looked at the end of his cigar as if he saw nothing else.
"Why doesn\'t she?" demanded Tredennis.
"She ought to," said Arbuthnot, with calm adroitness.
"Ought to!" Tredennis repeated. "She should have gone months ago. She—she is actually ill. Why in heaven\'s name does she stay? She told me two weeks since that she was going to Fortress Monroe, or some such place."
"She had better go to a New England farm-house, and wear a muslin gown and swing in a hammock," said Arbuthnot.
"You see that as well, do you?" said the colonel. "Why don\'t you tell her so?" and having said it, seemed to pull himself up suddenly, as if he felt he had been unconsciously impetuous.
Arbuthnot laughed.
His smile had died completely away, however, when he gave his side glance at his companion\'s face a moment later.
"She was quite serious in her intention of going away two weeks ago," he said. "She told me so; nothing but Richard\'s dinner-party prevented her departure in the first place."
He spoke in an entirely non-committal tone, but[Pg 126] there was a touch of interest in his quiet glance at Tredennis.
"You dined there with Planefield and the rest, didn\'t you?" he added.
"Yes."
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