“Now yo’ kin dress comfbul,” she told her, “an’ jess mek’ yo’se’f easy, my lamb. Tishy she ain’ gwine seh nuttin’ tuh naw-bode-y.”
Virginia tried to smile upon her. Something stiff at the corners of her mouth seemed to prevent her. She turned, lifting one hand to her cheek, and went into the yet quiet house.
VI.
Roden wondered a good deal during such moments as his thoughts reverted not to his ladylove, concerning Virginia’s recent neglect of him. Popocatepetl was his attendant now at meals, dried his newspapers, and gambolled for his amusement. Virginia had come to him on the afternoon of the day following that upon which he had announced to her his engagement, and had said she “didn’ know what took her las’ night. She cert’n’y was glad he was so happy. He mus’ please scuse her ’f she’d ben unperlite. She cert’n’y was glad.” But Roden missed her very much. Besides, he wished exceedingly to hear her sing again. He wanted to be quite sure that he had not deluded himself in regard to the possibilities contained in her sonorous voice.
Virginia continued to be very economical of her presence, however, and three days afterwards he was summoned to New York by telegraph to attend the bedside of an ailing thorough-bred.
Virginia did not come to tell him good-by. He thought it strange at the moment, but did not have time to ponder over it subsequently. She, in the mean time, kneeling behind the “slats” of her bedroom window-blinds, watched the little Canadian fishing-wagon as it drove away, with Popocatepetl proudly installed on the back seat. She held something crushed against her breast—an old Trinity College boating-cap which belonged to Roden. She knelt there for full a half-hour after the last grinding of the cart-wheels on the carriage-drive. No tears rose to soothe the burning in her eyes. She had not wept since that night spent by those lonely graves. At last she rose and went over beside the fire. The day was unusually raw for the season of the year.