It was a bright, cool morning, early in September, still summer, with summer’s green beauty all about; yet in the air there was an indefinable hint that the end was coming. There was an invitation to haste, even to recklessness—to live in joy while the roads were still open, before the iron frost came.
Never had Mr. Terrill seen Miss Miles so charming. To be sure, she responded with frank mockery to his sentimental glances, but he could forgive that, because her mockery was so gay and so kindly. Indeed, he liked everything she said and everything she did. She was willful, lively, imperious, and he submitted gallantly to her least caprice. This went to Jacqueline’s head a little; she found it only too agreeable to be imperious.
She made him stop the car while she gathered goldenrod and purple asters. She made him halt at the top of a hill and sit there for a long time in silence, while she admired the view. His patience and meekness encouraged her to further boldness. She insisted upon getting out of the car in Philipsville, pretending that she found that very dull and commonplace little village “quaint.”
With the obliging Mr. Terrill she strolled down the drowsy, tree-shaded Main Street until she found what she was looking for—a sign reading “Jordan Galloway, groceries and hardware.” Mr. Galloway’s store she also acclaimed as “quaint.” She went in, and bought some wizened little apples by way of excuse for lingering; and, behind the corner of a calendar hanging on the wall, she saw a little sheaf of letters addressed to Barty in her own handwriting. Then he hadn’t troubled to come and get her letters!
She was glad that the store was so dim and shadowy, for she could not keep back the tears. Terrill was talking affably with the proprietor, and nobody was looking at her just then. She could struggle valiantly against her pain and bitterness, and could master them.
She had turned toward Terrill, outwardly quite cool and self-possessed again, and was about to suggest their going on, when a man came in—a man so incongruous in Philipsville that she at once suspected his identity. He was a tall, lean man, fastidiously dressed in a theatrical sort of camper’s outfit—a gray flannel shirt, tweed knickerbockers, and high boots, all fatally belied by his neat Vandyke beard, his delicate hands, his toploftical air. What was more, he was smoking a cigarette in a long ivory holder. It was scarcely necessary for Galloway to address him as “Mr. Stafford.” She had felt sure enough of that already.
“Er—we want potatoes, Galloway,” he said; “and—er—bread and bacon and coffee, and so on.”
He went over to the calendar, took down the letters, and put them into his pocket. Then he saw Jacqueline. His hand went involuntarily to his hat, but he was wearing none, so he bowed gravely instead.
“Er—Galloway!” he said. “I’m in no hurry. Attend to the lady first.”
“Thank you,” said Jacqueline, “but I’ve finished. I was only going to ask if any one here would be kind enough to tell me where the old Veagh house is. I wanted to see that doorway.”