“What was the matter with me?” asked Lydia, prettily confident of a compliment to follow.
It came in so much less direct a form than she had expected that before she recognized it she had returned it with naïve impulsiveness.
“I didn’t think you could be real,” said the man, “you looked so exactly the way this glorious morning made me feel.”
“Why, that’s just how you looked to me!” she cried, and flushed at the significance of her words.
Before her confusion the other turned away his quiet gray eyes, and said lightly, “Well, that’s because we are the only people in all the world with sense enough to get up so early on a morning like this. I’ve been out tramping since dawn.”
Lydia explained herself also. “I just couldn’t sleep, it seemed so lovely. It’s my first morning home, you know.”
“Is it?” responded the man, with a vagueness he made no effort to conceal.
It came over Lydia with a shock that he did not know she had been away. She felt hurt. It seemed ungracious for anyone in Endbury not to have missed her, not to share in the joyful excitement of her final return. “I’ve been in Europe for a year,” she told him, with a dignity that was a reproach.
“Oh, yes, yes; I remember now hearing Dr. Melton speak of it,” he answered, with no shade of apology for his forgetfulness. He looked at her speculatively, as if wondering what note to strike for the continuation of their talk. Apparently he decided on the note of lightness. “Well, you’re the most important person there is for me to-day,” he told her unexpectedly.
Lydia arched her dark eyebrows inquiringly. She was always sensitively responsive, and now had forgotten, like a sweet-tempered child, her momentary pique.