"Miss Plumstead, I am truly sorry. I had no idea that I was saying anything to pain you. Please forgive me!" said Mr. Wallis in a shocked tone, for Nealie's face was covered with her handkerchief, and by the heave of her shoulders it was easy to see that she was crying bitterly.
"Oh, it is nothing, quite nothing, and I am very silly!" she said nervously. "But somehow I never can bear to see men who have lost their limbs. It is so sad and hopeless, because, of course, they can never be the same again, and life must be so very sad."
Mr. Wallis laughed in a cheerful manner. "I don't think that you would consider Reginald Baxter a very sad man if you knew him. As I said before, he looks upon the loss of his arm as his entrance into freedom, and it would be hard to find a happier man, I should think. But let us go in and find some tea, and think no more about such matters."
Tea was such a merry function that no one had much time to notice that there was something wrong with Nealie, although she was so very quiet that Rupert asked her once if she did not feel well.
"Oh yes, I am quite well, thank you; only perhaps a little tired," she replied, smiling at him in a rather wistful fashion; and then, as Sylvia claimed his attention, he forgot about it, and there was so much to see and to hear, with so many details of to-morrow's journey to discuss, that it is not wonderful he did not even remember Nealie had said she was tired.
Later in the evening, when they were back at the hotel, the younger ones had gone to bed, and Mr. Wallis had gone away after bidding them a most affectionate good night, Nealie said abruptly: "There is something you ought to know, Rupert, that I have always hated to tell you."
"Then don't tell it," put in Sylvia lazily. "I think that half the misery of the world comes through having to do unpleasant things, such as going to bed when you want to sit up, and in having to get up by candlelight on a dark morning in winter when you would far rather take your breakfast in bed."
"What is it? A trouble of some sort?" asked Rupert, with a start, for he was remembering Nealie's low spirits at teatime and wondering where the trouble came in.
"Yes," said Nealie shortly, and then hesitated as if not sure where to begin.
"Well, you can enjoy it together, if it must be told, but I am going to bed, for it seems to me almost like a sacrilege to spoil such a beautiful day as this has been with even a hint of anything unpleasant," said Sylvia, getting out of her easy chair in a great hurry. Then she said in quite a pathetic tone, as she kissed Rupert: "I wonder when we shall have easy chairs to sit in again; don't you?"