"Yes—of course— Come, Winchie," stammered Helen.
"Just watch me pitch, father," cried Winchie. "Jimmie's taught me to curve."
"You don't say!" exclaimed Dick with an interest whose exaggeration roused no suspicion in the boy's breast.
While Richard was watching the exhibition with such exclamations as "fine"—"that's a soaker"—"look out or you'll do up your catcher," Courtney was watching him. She found no trace of the weary, tragedy-torn misanthrope of song and story. Evidently Dick had been too busy with other things to bother about himself. Instead of travel stains, there was neatness and care and not a little fashion in his apparel. Never had she seen him so well dressed—-and in admirable taste from collar and tie to well-cut tan boots. His hair was short—the way it was becoming to his long, strong face and finely shaped head. The face was not so gaunt as in those years of close application, especially the last two years when indigestion was giving him its look of hunger and sallow ill temper. The cheeks had filled out, had bronzed, and the blood was pouring healthily along underneath. It was distinctly a happier face, too. The eyes following Winchie's elaborate contortions in imitation of the famous pitcher of the Wenona Grays had an expression of aliveness and alertness that meant interest in the world about him. He had been one of those men of no age, like monks and convicts and professional students. He was now a young man—and a handsome young man.
When he turned away from the ball game, they went to the eastern end of the veranda. She sat in the hammock, he leaned on the broad arm of a veranda chair. "Well," said he, by way of a beginning, "you see I'm back."
"You've been abroad—haven't you?"
"Paris and Switzerland. I had a grand time. Fell in with some English people and we did three passes together, and then rested and amused ourselves at St. Moritz. Then—to Paris. I never thought I'd care about eating, but the Ritz seduced me. I think of nothing else. Then—London, to get myself outfitted. I needed it badly."
What he said sounded strange enough from him, from Richard the abstraction, the embodied chemistry. The way he said it was stupefying. There was lightness; there was the sparkle that bubbles to the surface of every look and phrase of a person with a keen sense of humor. Richard had plainly come to life while he was away. Said Courtney: "I suspect you've not worked very hard this summer and fall."
"Work?" replied he, with a laugh. "Not I! It was a hard pull at first, the habit had become so strong. But I determined I'd freshen myself up. Once I got away where I could take an impartial look at things, I saw I was not only not getting the right results by such stolid, stupid grinding but was actually destroying my mind—was getting old and stale. So, I locked up the laboratory I carry round inside me, and set out to learn to live—to learn to have a good time."
"And you did?"