"Talk to me," he said, turning still more toward her. "I have seen no one for a long time. Who is doing? What is doing?" So Beth talked to him.
This was her mission in life—to talk people into cheerfulness and bring them nearer the rest of the world. She enjoyed it always, but it was especially pleasant to her as she spoke with Mather. For he was real, he was big, he was not baulked by conditions which might have been too much for him. Estrangement from Judith was not, she was glad to see, making him melancholy. He seemed in good physical condition; though he had not gone much with people of late, she had seen him from her window, early in the morning, sailing on the bay before he went to his work. It was not Judith alone, therefore, but work also, that kept him from going about. All this she felt, or guessed, as she told him of little matters.
"It is too bad," she said after a while. "You should have a mother, or a sister, to tell you all this."
"That Esther Fenno is away yachting, or that John Watson is attentive to Mary Carr?" He laughed. "But, Beth, you shall be my sister of mercy, and I will come here oftener."
"Come, then," she said. "Some day there will be better or more important items, and you may be glad of the bargain. Or if you happen to call on Judith when Mr. Ellis does, you may talk with me."
"Couldn't he do that?" He maintained the appearance of jesting, but she said seriously:
"I don't like him."
Then he put out his hand to her; she took it, and Judith came upon them thus.
A pang shot through him as he rose and greeted her; she was quiet in her manner—his coming could not move her in the least. He wished he might feel that there had been a flash of inquiry in her first glance at him and Beth, but her face had not really changed. She welcomed him kindly enough. "He is going to stay to dinner," said Beth. Judith answered with a conventional "Good!" Then the Colonel appeared; he had brought the mail.
"A letter for you, Judith," he said. "A thick package, rather."