“We sha’n’t be staying much longer at Jupiter Light, I guess,” he said aloud, in a jocular tone.
“No,” Eve answered. “The summer is really over,” she added, as if in explanation.
“Don’t look much like it to-day.”
She made no reply.
“Paul went back to Potterpins rather in a hurry, didn’t he?” pursued Hollis, playing with his misery.
“Yes.—He has a good deal to do,” she continued. If he could not resist playing with his misery, neither could she help exulting in her happiness, parading it for her own joy in spoken words; it made it more real.
“Good deal to do? He didn’t tell me about it; perhaps I could have helped him,” Hollis went on awkwardly, but looking at her with all his heart in his eyes—his poor, hungry, unsatisfied old heart.
“You could be of use to us,” said Eve, suddenly; (“Us!” thought Hollis.)—“the very greatest, Mr. Hollis. If you would go south with Judge Abercrombie and Mrs. Morrison it would be everything. They will probably go in a week or ten days, and Mrs. Mile accompanies them; but if you could go too, it would be much safer.”
“And you to stay in Port aux Pins with Paul,” thought Hollis. “I don’t grudge it to you, Evie, God knows I don’t—may you be very happy, sweet one! But I shall have to get out of this all the same. I’m ashamed of myself, old fellow that I am, but I can’t stand it, I can’t! I shall have to clear out. I’ll go west.”
Eve, meanwhile, was waiting for his reply. “Of course, Miss Bruce,” he answered aloud, “should like nothing better than a little run down South. Why, the old judge and me, we’ll make a regular spree of it!” And he slapped his leg in confirmation.