“And you think you know the world. You called me an infant.”
“Well, I own I never could make it square with the rest of you.”
“Oh, I must make you understand. You see I was expecting a great friend of mine—an old friend of all our family was coming to see me off; at least, I hoped he was. When I heard that somebody was asking for me, I was sure it was—” Up and down the deck her eye went roving. She lowered her voice—“a man called Louis Cheviot.” And she told Mrs. Locke what he was like, this old friend. “You see the reason I jumped so quickly to the conclusion he was asking for me, is that he never before failed me. He’s been a quite uncommon sort of friend. He’s the man I’ve once or twice mentioned.” (Mrs. Locke kept her lips from smiling, “once or twice!”) “Though I never said what his name was. I told you about his hunting up my father and staying with him all those months; about his coming out with dogs over the ice, just to bring us word; and that kind of thing. He’s a very particular friend of all of us. And then he’s the most wonderful company. He makes you always see the fun of things. And you—Yes, life is always more interesting, somehow, when he’s there. Did you ever know anybody like that?”
“He didn’t, after all, come to see you off. Yes, I’ve known some one like that.”
Hildegarde turned her head suddenly. Up the deck and down the deck the wide eyes vainly traveled. How had it come that she had felt so sure? What had she to go on? A likeness in the shoulder outline. Something the same trick in the carriage of the head. A pang shot through her. “Yes,” she said, as though agreeing that he had failed her, “I’ve often said to myself, ‘To think of his never even saying good-by.’” (Yet she had been imagining—A dullness fell upon her that was worse than acute disappointment.) “He was angry,” she went on. “We had quarreled, because I would go to Nome.”
“He was right and you were wrong,” said Mrs. Locke.
Hildegarde smiled. She rather liked this woman for veering round and taking his part. “Well, all the same, I thought it wasn’t very nice of him not to send me any sign of forgiveness at the last. And the odd thing is” (her spirits revived a little in the act of talking about this old friend) “it was so unlike Louis Cheviot. He can be rather severe, but he never sulks. He’s the kind of person” (Hildegarde had no idea how often she had said “he is the kind of person”), “the kind that always looks after his friends. And no matter how badly they treat him he goes on looking after them. He was like that even when he was little. His sister once told me a thing about him that just shows you what kind of—He was seven years old, Barbara said, and the most fiery little patriot you ever heard of. And in other ways, yes, I’ve often thought there could never have been a little boy so like the grown man as this child was like the Louis Cheviot I know.” She said it with an air of one making an effective point.
“Is that so?” said Mrs. Locke, telling herself she hadn’t realized how handsome the girl was until this morning.
“Just to give you an idea. He had a perfect passion, his sister says, for making a noise. Yes, but more than any boy she ever knew. You had only to say fire-crackers to make Louis explode with enthusiasm. The only reason he wanted to grow up was so that he could get a gun, and he’d rather let off torpedoes than eat pie. No picnic or birthday or holiday of any sort was the real thing unless he could make a fearful rumpus. And the day he lived for the year round was the Fourth of July. Yes, yes, I know most American boys are like that, only Louis was more so than any boy you ever heard of. So his sister says. Well, I forgot to tell you when he was two his father died awfully in debt. For years the Cheviots were so poor they didn’t always have enough bread. So they were naturally pretty short of fire-crackers. And for those early years poor little Louis had to get his fun out of other boys’ noise.”