Upon Brock and St. Jacques, her mind rested longer. Until the night before, they had seemed to her to be a pair of boon comrades. While their holiday lasted, they would make merry together. When she turned her face to the southward, the bonds of their acquaintance would drop apart, and their lives would spin on in their individual orbits. Now, all at once, she questioned. The naked impulses of humanity show themselves in times of danger. At last night’s alarm, both Brock and St. Jacques had turned instinctively to her protection. Then the difference had showed itself. Brock had given his whole care and strength to her alone. St. Jacques had swiftly assured himself that she was in safe hands; then, with a caution to Brock to guard the Lady, he had thrown himself to the rescue of Mr. Cecil Barth, not because he liked Barth, but because his instincts were all for the succoring of the weak. All night long, Nancy had gloried in Brock’s strength and in the singleness of his devotion. Nevertheless, she was woman enough to glory still more in the more prosaic gallantry of the dark-browed little Frenchman. As a rule, the pretty girl in evening dress is prone to inspire more chivalry than a taciturn Britisher of chilly manners and unflattering tongue.
Suddenly Nancy buried her nose in her story. Barth had come into the library and seated himself at the table close at her elbow. When she looked up again, he had put on his glasses and was waiting to meet her eye. She nodded to him, and, before she could go back to her magazine again, he had turned his chair until it faced her own. Over the blue Laurentides the twilight was dropping fast. Upstairs in the dim gallery the librarian was moving slowly here and there among his books. Otherwise the place was quite deserted, save for the two young people sitting in the sunset glow.
“And is this one of your haunts, too, Miss Howard?” Barth asked, as he tossed his magazine back to the table.
The matter-of-course friendliness of his tone struck a new note in their acquaintance. Nancy liked it.
“Yes, I often come here, when it is too stormy for walking,” she assented.
“You walk a great deal?”
“Endlessly. Still, it doesn’t take so many steps to circumnavigate this little city, I find. I love to explore the out-of-the-way nooks and corners; don’t you?”
“I did, until I was cut off in my prime. I had only had two weeks, before disaster overtook me.”
This time, Nancy was mindful of her incognito.
“You broke your ankle, I think?” she said interrogatively.