Nevertheless, Olive struck out fearlessly. Even if the ice did crack and let them through, such old, well-tried friends as Reed and herself could face what lay beneath it, without sentimental fears. They had taken one such plunge together; they both preferred to avoid another, if they could, and yet better to flounder through the ice than to keep away from it entirely. Therefore Olive's tone was nonchalant, as she reported,—
"I met her in the street, the day after you came home, and she begged me to tell you—"
"She took it as a matter of course you'd be bidden to the private view," Reed interrupted.
"Of course. The whole community understood that. Else, what was the use of our breaking our collar bones in unison, when you lured me into tobogganing off the barn?" Olive replied promptly. "Where was I? Oh, yes,—begged me to tell you how well she remembered your kindness to her—yes, your kindness—when she was a shy child from the country."
Reed's comment was a terse one.
"Shy! She!" he said.
"You sound like an Indian dialect. However—And that she should claim a place among your earlier friends, when the time came when they could sit with you."
Reed squirmed.
"Sit with! Oh, Lord! That settles it, Olive. In spite of all your polite evasions, the town does look upon me as a moral asset, a chronic case to be put upon a par with other charities," he said, with sudden bitterness.
Olive's colour came, though not from annoyance.