"That's just like Cousin Ray," thought Bethany, quickly interpreting the message. "She knew this would be an unusually trying day on account of the heat, so she gives me something to think about instead of my irksome confinement. 'They toil not, neither do they spin,'" she whispered, lifting one snowy chalice to her lips; "but what help they bring to those who do—sweet, white evangels to all those who labor and are heavy laden!"
She fastened one in her belt, then turned to her work. She had been copying a record, and wanted to finish it before Mr. Edmunds was ready to attend to the morning mail. Her fingers flew over the keys without a pause, except when she stopped to put in a new sheet of paper. When she was nearly through, she heard Mr. Edmunds's voice in the next room, and increased her speed. She had forgotten that this was the day David Herschel was to come into the office. He had taken the desk assigned him, and was so busily engaged in conversation with Mr. Edmunds that for a while he did not notice the occupant of the next room. When, at last, he happened to glance through the open door, he did not recognize Bethany, for she was seated with her back toward him.
He noticed what a cool-looking white dress she wore, the graceful poise of her head, and her beautiful sunny hair. Then he saw the lilies beside her, and wished she would turn so that he could see her face.
"Some fair Elaine—a lily-maid of Astolat," he thought, and then smiled at himself for having grown Tennysonian over a typewriter before he had even heard her name or seen her face.
At last Bethany finished the record, with a sigh of relief. Quickly fastening the pages, she rose to take it into the next room. Just on the threshold she saw Herschel, and gave an involuntary little start of surprise.
As she stood there, all in white, with one hand against the dark door-casing, she looked just as she had the night David first saw her. He arose as she entered.
Mr. Edmunds was not usually a man of quick perceptions, but he noticed the look of admiration in David's eyes, and he thought they both seemed a trifle embarrassed as he introduced them.
They had recalled at the same moment the night in the Chattanooga depot, when she had distinctly declared to Mr. Marion that she did not care to make his acquaintance.
For once in her life she lost her usual self-possession. That gracious ease of manner which "stamps the caste of Vere de Vere" was one of her greatest charms. But just at this moment, when she wished to atone for that unfortunate remark by an especially friendly greeting, when she wanted him to know that her point of view had changed entirely, and that not a vestige of the old prejudice remained, she could not summon a word to her aid.
Conscious of appearing ill at ease, she blushed like a diffident school-girl, and bowed coldly.