Donald followed Wainwright, his heart-beats peculiarly accelerated. For an instant he could not distinguish objects in the dim interior. Then his eyes rested on Connie, sitting demurely in the corner. She wore a gingham dress of blue, with white collar and cuffs. A dark belt was fastened snugly at her slender waist. Tiny high-heeled shoes peeped from below the hem of her skirt. Her beautiful hair hung down her back in a huge braid that fastened at the nape of her slim, round neck with a narrow black bow. She rose and crossed the room to meet him, her high heels making her lithe little body appear much taller. There was something fragile about her beauty, some of the colour gone from her cheeks, and just a hint of shadows under her eyes.
Donald held out his hand. “Good evening, I’m glad to see that you are better,” he said awkwardly.
A slender, warm hand crept timidly into his, and his fingers closed on it gently as on a flower. He stared down at her, thrilled by her loveliness. She raised her eyes with their bewilderingly long lashes slowly to his face. With a sudden leaping of his heart, Donald realized that he was in love.
They talked desultorily while Connie sat timidly on the edge of the uncomfortable chair. She could not feel at ease in the high, narrow shoes and the enveloping skirts. And as she essayed to cross the rough floor with an assumed air of ease, her ankle turned and she would have fallen had not Donald caught her in his arms.
As he raised her to her feet she blushed furiously, and he fancied he could feel the warm beating of her heart. With an embarrassed apology, she slipped from him, crossed to the table and lighted a candle. And presently he took his leave, Wainwright walking with him down the darkening trail.
Wainwright was in one of his brooding moods. For a few minutes he was silent. As they neared the bluff he spoke.
“After witnessing my daughter’s distress the morning of the race I am afraid that you feel harshly toward me for allowing her to be placed in such a humiliating position. You have been exceedingly kind to us; therefore, I feel that I should relate the circumstances which have placed me in my present position. As I told you that day, I have allowed my pride to withhold from my daughter her inherited rights. I will be as brief as possible.
“My father, who took great pride in the family name, planned a political career for me even from the day of my birth. By natural taste and temperament I was quite unfitted for public life. I must have been a great trial to him, as from early boyhood I evinced a great love for the study of botany and ornithology. He would go into a red rage when he found me in the garden studying flowers under a microscope or stalking birds in the shrubbery.
“At college I was not a success, either socially or in my class. Always of a retiring nature, I did not enter social life or college sports, and the course of study set for me by my father bored me extremely.
“During my third year at college I met Connie’s mother. Until that time no woman had entered my life, although my father had hinted his plans for my marriage as soon as I had finished my course.