"I thought I ought to come in and say good-bye. I'm going off on some business for father, and may not be back for several weeks."
"That sounds as if you needed an apology for coming at all," she commented with half-resentful gayety.
He flushed and made no immediate reply.
"And we are going to take a journey as well. Up somewhere in Maine. Mr. Giles Leverett insists we shall, for our health, but I think it is our delightful company. He has to go to look after a large estate where some people think of founding a town. Isn't it funny?" and she gave her bewitching laugh that was like the notes of silver bells, soft, yet clear. "They must go off and build up new places. And some people are going West, as if there wasn't room here. Have you noticed that we are overcrowded?"
"Well, sometimes along the docks it looks that way."
"I like a good many people. Often Merrits' is crowded, and it's funny to catch bits of sentences. And at Plummer's as well. Did you ever read right across the paper, one line in each column, and notice the odd and twisted-up sense it made? That's about the way it sounds."
How bright and charming she was! Ben could not keep his eyes from her radiant face. Was she really a coquette, Chilian wondered. Yet she was so simple with it all, so seemingly careless of the effect. That was the danger of it.
He lingered like one entranced. Poor young lad! Chilian began to feel sorry for him.
She walked down to the gate with him, and hoped they would have a nice time when autumn came, if he meant to stay in Salem.
A young man not in love would have called her a bright, merry, chatty girl. He went away with the consciousness that she liked him very much. Chilian asked her if she did.