Therefore it shall only be said here that the party of surveyors had employed that morning in sighting and flagging up and down the banks beneath the Long Bridge, and Ingram, having spent two hours in their company, was now climbing the hillside for pure athletic joy, being one of those who prefer a scramble to a smooth road any day. As he came lightly up the last long swing that measured the bank for him, he surely was looking for nothing less in life than that which he found at the top,—and yet that which he found at the top was not so disagreeable a surprise, after all. For Lassie, even now when indubitably miserable, pink-eyed and wretched, was still a very pretty girl. A pretty girl is very much like a rose in the rain—a few drops of water only add to its charm; and so when Ingram came suddenly upon her, crying there under a tree, and caused her to look up with a little scream at the man crashing out of the bushes with such a force of interruption as made her jump to her feet and shrink quickly away—why, really it was all far less startling and alarming than it sounds to read about. For he at once exclaimed, "Surely you remember me." And she saw who it was, stared at him dazedly for an instant, and then dropped her face in her hands again, realizing that he was the first of the big world that "hadn't been told," and that he would ask what was the matter, and that she must not tell him. And so—and so—there was nothing to do but hide her face—and collect her wits—and listen.
"SURELY YOU REMEMBER ME."
"What is it?" he said, and as she felt for her handkerchief she could but think how hard it was to resist sympathy when one's dearest friend was doing such unheard-of things, and one had just learned about them. Not that she would tell him why she was crying, of course.
"What is it?" he asked again then—he was very near now. "You know who I am. I used to know you when you were a little girl. You remember?"
She was still feeling for her handkerchief, and he put a great white one into her seeking hand. She wiped her eyes with it and thought again that he must not be told, and so said, with quivering lips:
"Oh, please leave me, please go away. Nothing is the matter, but I must be alone. I want to be alone. Please go away and leave me."
Ingram looked down upon her and, laying his hand on her arm with a grasp that was so firm as to feel brotherly (to one not yet a débutante), said in a tone of fascinating authority (to one not yet a débutante):
"What is it? What is the trouble? You've had a letter with bad news?" In his own mind he set it down that she and Alva had had a misunderstanding of some sort, but that opinion he would not voice.