Gard nodded. "I met them at the train last night. Yes--she is--herself."
"She had an awful close call!" Teddy exclaimed, his face grown grave.
There was reminiscent silence for a moment. With an active swing of his athletic body, Dorothy's adorer collected his hat, gloves and cane in one sweep, spun on his heel with gleeful ease, smiled his sudden sunny smile, and waved a quick good-by.
XVIII
Teddy Mahr paused for a moment before descending to the street. He was honestly disappointed. He had hoped with all his heart to overcome Gard's opposition. Not that he was over anxious to pay, in some degree, the debt of gratitude that he owed--he had come to regard his benefactor as a being so near and dear to him that there was no question of the ethics of giving and taking, but he had longed to give himself the keen pleasure of bestowing something that his friend really wanted. There was just one more chance of achieving his purpose--the intervention of Dorothy; her caprices Gard never denied. If he could only induce Dorothy--Early as it was he determined to intreat her intercession.
Walking briskly for a few blocks, he entered an hotel and sought the telephone booth. The wide awake voice that answered him was very unlike the sweet and sleepy drawls of protest his matutinal ringings were wont to call forth when Dorothy had been a gay and frivolous débutante. The enforced quiet of her mother's prolonged illness, and the sojourn in the retirement of a hill sanitarium, had made of her a very different creature from the gaudy little night-bird of yore. The experiences through which she had passed, their anxiety and pain, had left her nature sweetened and deepened; had given her new sympathies and understandings. Now her laugh was just as clear--but its ring of light coquetry was gone.
"Of course, I'll take a walk with you," came her answer,--"if you'll stop for me. I'm quite a pedestrian, you know. I had to take some sort of a cure in sheer self-defense, up there in the wilds, so I decided on fresh air--and now it's a habit. I'll be ready."
Teddy walked rapidly, his heart singing. He had quite forgotten his errand in the anticipated joy of seeing her. If he thought at all of the painting, it was an unformulated regret that no living artist could do Dorothy justice, or ever hope to transfer to canvas any true semblance of her many perfections.