Though the succeeding days and weeks dragged wearily for Darrell, he applied himself anew to work and study, and only the lurking shadows within his eyes, the deepening lines on his face, the fast multiplying gleams of silver in his dark hair, gave evidence of his suffering.
And if to Kate the summer seemed suddenly to have lost its glory and music, if she found the round of social pleasures on which she had just entered grown strangely insipid, if it sometimes seemed to her that she had quaffed all the richness and sweetness of life on that wondrous first night till only the dregs remained, she gave no sign. With her sunny smile and lightsome ways she reigned supreme, both in society and in the home, and none but her aunt and Darrell missed the old-time rippling laughter or noted the deepening wistfulness and seriousness of the fair young face.
Her father watched her with growing pride, and with a visible satisfaction which told of carefully laid plans known only to himself, whose consummation he deemed not far distant.
Acting on the suggestion of his sister, he had been closely observant of both Kate and Darrell, but any conclusions which he formed he kept to himself and went his way apparently well satisfied.
At the close of an unusually busy day late in the
summer Darrell was seated alone in his office, reviewing his life in the West and vaguely wondering what would yet be the outcome of it all, when Mr. Underwood entered from the adjoining room. Exultation and elation were patent in his very step, but Darrell, lost in thought, was hardly conscious even of his presence.
"Well, my boy, what are you mooning over?" Mr. Underwood asked, good-naturedly, noting Darrell's abstraction.