CHAPTER XXV
After Ethan had gone, life seemed to stand still for a long, long time. The only real events were his letters, not to Val, although she had written him the very night after he went away. His letters were all addressed to her grandmother, and yet every syllable seemed to the girl's mind to be meant for herself—to be charged with subtle meaning, intelligible to no one else.
At Christmas he wrote the two girls a single perfunctory page of cousinly greeting that arrived with his presents, a couple of Russian silver belts. But this letter was addressed to Val, and she would not open it till she was alone. Inside was an enclosure in a separate envelope:
"Dear Cousin Val,—Forgive me for not answering your letter. It would be nice of you to send me a line, now and then, to tell me how things go on at the Fort, and whether I can do anything for anybody there. I enclose cheque.
"Your affectionate cousin, Ethan Gano."
"'Cousin!' 'cousin!' forever 'cousin!'" ejaculated the girl; and she answered him the same day:
"Dear Ethan,—Thank you for the beautiful belt, but I do not forgive you for not answering my letter. Still, I will do anything in reason that you ask me if you don't ever call me cousin again."
And then followed an account of her surreptitious household expenditures. He answered early in the New Year:
"Dear Val,—I obey your mandate, and will not hereafter own you for a cousin. I believe that by strenuous wishing you could almost think yourself out of the relationship."
"I am very sure I could" [she wrote back] "if you would let me."