She looked up from folding her letter, to see whether he was in earnest. "That," she said, slowly, "is rather a unique point of view!"
He ran his fingers through his hair, and came towards her. "Unique? I hope not," he replied. "Oh, I see what you mean—you're taking issue with my word 'amusing'! I'm not thinking of passing the time, as a definition of that word; I'm thinking of fun, mirth, that kind of amusement—nothing to do with chorus ladies and things to eat and drink and that sort of thing, you know!"
She was learning to watch his smile as one watches a barometer; to-day the signs were certainly propitious. There was something of indulgence in her look as she replied to him, the indulgence one feels towards the young and inexperienced.
"So you think it is a good thing to be amused—in your way?" she asked.
He nodded. "Most assuredly. Nothing like it. And the most amusing thing I know is the way we can cheat disease and dirt and a few other nice little things like them—turn the joke on them! Now, there's Master Tim—eh, youngster? Life will seem like a good deal of a joke to you, when you get over that ache in your hip, won't it? Think you'll find fun in life then, don't you, old chap? And there's a girl down in the valley—by the way, how'd you like to go down with me and make a call? Do you a lot of good!"
He cocked his head on one side and looked at Rosamund inquiringly, persuasively.
She had seen him every day for two weeks, and this was the first moment he had looked at her with the least shadow of personal interest. Until now, she had felt that she was no more to him than an article of furniture, certainly less of a personage than Mother Cary or Yetta or the sick child. She had a feeling that he tolerated her solely as an aid, that she had not even the virtue of being a 'case'; and she told herself in secret disgust that while she did not possess the last virtue, she at least shared the patients' fault, or absurdity; she had to admit that he piqued her interest, and she resented his doing so, blaming him even while disgusted at herself.
But, to-day, with the charming woman's intuition, she knew that he was seeing her with different eyes, as if she had only just now come within his range of vision; yet she knew that his was a look that she had not encountered from other men.
Hitherto, the men she knew had been quite evidently aware of her beauty. She had always accepted, quite calmly, the fact that there was enough of that to be of first consideration, over and beyond anything else that she might possess. This country doctor was the first man who had ever appeared unconscious of the excellence of her femininity; but the same pride which had led her to repel Flood's admiration forbade her making any conscious appeal for Ogilvie's. There was, after all, very little of the coquette in her. The amusement that his obliviousness caused her, or the interest it excited in her, was only increased by his suggestion that she should accompany him on a visit to some mountaineer's cottage; he had offered it as likely to do her good, and not, as she might not unreasonably have expected, that her going would brighten or benefit or honor the mountain girl. It was a new experience, surely, for Rosamund Randall!
On their way down the mountain, which White Rosy knew so well that to guide her would have been entirely superfluous, he talked cheerfully, as always, of many things—of White Rosy herself, of the mountain people, of the view across the valley, of roadside shrubs and flowers. It was the first of their drives together, and the woman they went to see that day became a most important factor in their destinies.