CHAPTER XII — WORDS AND LETTEBS
Mary Blythe and her brother arrived on Tuesday for a two days' visit. Alix motored to town and brought them out in the automobile. She was surprised and gratified when Courtney, revoking his own decree, volunteered to go up with her to meet the visitors at the railway station in the city. But when the day came, he was ill and unable to leave his room. The cold, steady rains of the past few days had brought on an attack of pleurisy, and the doctor ordered him to remain in bed. He grumbled a great deal over missing the little dinner Alix was giving on the first night of their stay, and sent more than one lamentation forth in the shape of notes carried up to the house on the knoll by Jim House, the venerable handy-man at Dowd's Tavern.
"I really don't recall him," said Addison Blythe, frowning thoughtfully. "He probably came to the sector after I left, Miss Crown. I've got a complete roster at home of all the fellows who served in the American Ambulance up to the time it was taken over. I'd like to meet him. I may have run across him any number of times. Names didn't mean much, you see, except in cases where we hung out together in one place for some time. I would remember his face, of course. Faces made impressions, and that's more than names did. Courtney Thane? Seems to me I have a vague recollection of that name. You say he was afterward flying with the British?"
"Yes. He was wounded and gassed at—at—let me think. What was the name of the place? Only a few weeks before the armistice."
"There was a great deal doing a few weeks before the armistice," said Blythe, smiling. "You'll have to be a little more definite than that. The air was full of British aeroplanes from London clear to Palestine. What is he doing here?"
"Recovering his health. He has had two attacks of pneumonia, you see,—and a touch of typhoid. His family originally lived in this country. The old Thane farm is almost directly across the river from Windomville. Courtney's father was born there, but went east to live during the first Cleveland administration. He had some kind of a political appointment in Washington, and married a Congressman's daughter from Georgia, I think—anyhow, it was one of the Southern states. He is really quite fascinating, Mary. You would lose your heart to him, I am sure."
"And, pray, have you offered any reward for yours?" inquired Mary Blythe, smiling as she studied her friend's face rather narrowly.
Alix met her challenging gaze steadily. A sharper observer than Mary Blythe might have detected the faintest shadow of a cloud in the dark, honest eyes.
"When I lose it, dear, I shall say 'good riddance' and live happily ever after without one," she replied airily.
The next morning she started off with her guests for a drive down the river, to visit the old fort and the remains of the Indian village. Stopping at the grain elevator, she beckoned to Charlie Webster. The fat little manager came bustling out, beaming with pleasure.