“What for?”
“Why, for the same reason some of the others would do the same thing!”
Paul shook his head. “I don’t think it’s friendly to try to fill me up with fairy stories, Mamie—not just the first minute after I’ve come home anyhow. When I went away——”
“Oh, there’ve been lots of changes,” Miss Ford assured him. “You’ll have to get used to ’em. We’ve been used to the change about Elsie so long now I suppose we hardly realize there was a change. I guess what happened was that we never used to appreciate her, and she had a way of not seeming to feel she counted much, herself; but now we’ve got a little older and have more sense, or something, and we all see what a wonderful girl she is. You ought to hear old Fred! When he gets started—well, of course, I think she’s great myself, but after I’ve listened to poor old Fred’s babble for a couple of hours I almost hate her!”
Again Mr. Reamer shook his head. “It doesn’t seem to me my hearing’s exactly right. Are you really telling me——”
“You better go see,” Mamie advised him. “Oh, you’ll get it, too! You think you won’t, but you will. You’ll get it as bad as any of ’em, Paul Reamer.”
The experienced young man laughed in sheerest incredulity; but that evening, his curiosity being somewhat piquantly aroused, he acted upon Miss Ford’s advice and went to find out if it could possibly be true that he had overlooked anything important in so long overlooking Elsie Hemingway. It didn’t seem probable, but if it proved to be the fact, he was somewhat amusedly prepared to make good to himself what he had lost by the overlooking.
The moment he saw her, when she came into the old-fashioned living-room of the quiet house that had once been too quiet, he understood that he had much more to repay himself for than he had dreamed could be possible. Elsie’s look of knowing something mysterious and lovely about herself was still upon her; and Mr. Reamer set himself ardently and instantly to the task of self-repayment.
“Elsie,” he said, “I’ve been away for a long, dreary time, and I’ve just got back. I’ve come to spend my very first evening with you.”
He was too late.