"Why talk that way, ma'am? We hope to have you with us many years longer," Chase answered. "A green old age is a very fine thing to see." (He thought rather well of that phrase.) "My grandmother—she stuck it out to ninety-eight, and I hope you'll do the same."
"Probably she wished to live. I have no such desire. As I sat here beside my son the morning we arrived, I knew that I longed to go, too. I want to be with him—and with my husband—and my dear father. My life here has now come to its end, for they were my life."
"That queer Dolly knew!" thought Chase. "But perhaps they've talked about it?" He asked this question aloud. "Have you told your daughter that, ma'am?"
"Told my poor Dolly? Of course not. Please go to breakfast, Mr. Chase; I am sure it is ready." Chase went to the dining-room. A moment later Dolly came in to pour out the coffee.
"Is there anything I can do for you this morning?" Chase asked, as he took a piece of Zoe's hot corn-bread. "I am going to drive over to Old Fort this afternoon, and wait there for Ruth, for I've calculated the trains, and I reckon that she and Hill will reach there to-morrow."
Dolly looked at him for a moment. Then she said: "You have a great deal of influence with Genevieve; perhaps you could make her understand that for the present it is better that she should not try to see mother. Tell her that mother is much more broken than she was yesterday; tell her that she is very nervous; tell her, in short, anything you please, provided it keeps her away!" Dolly added, suddenly giving up her long effort to hide her bitter dislike.
Chase glanced at her, and said nothing; he ate his corn-bread, and finished his first cup of coffee in silence. Then, as she poured out the second, he said: "Well, she might keep away entirely? She might leave Asheville? She has a brother in St. Louis, and she likes the place, I know; I've heard her say so. If her property here could be taken off her hands—at a good valuation—and if a well-arranged, well-furnished house could be provided for her there, near her brother, I guess she'd go. I even guess she'd go pretty quick," he added; "she'd be a long sight happier there than here." For though he had no especial affection for Genevieve, he at least liked her better than he liked Dolly.
Dolly, however, was indifferent to his liking or his disliking. "Oh!" she said, her gaze growing vague in the intensity of her wish, "if it could only be done!" Then her brow contracted, she pushed her plate away. "But we cannot possibly be so much indebted to you—I mean so much more indebted."
"You needn't count yourself in, if it worries you," Chase answered with his deliberate utterance. "For I should be doing it principally for Ruth, you know. When she comes, the first thing she'll want to do, of course, is to make her mother comfortable. And if Gen's clearing out, root and branch, will help that, I rather guess Ruth can fix it."
"You mean that you can."