“Oh, Letitia, don’t be so funny,” he said. “I haven’t laughed as much as this for a month.”
He took her hand and, drawing it inside his arm, pressed it against his heart; then, looking down at her with eyes still full of laughter, but touched with tenderness, he said:
“To think of Letitia Mason taking the trouble to give me good advice!”
Letitia was mollified, less by his words than by his manner, which had in it that kindly camaraderie which made her feel happy and at ease. She withdrew her hand, laughing, and said, with a sort of shyness that was very charming:
“I’ll always give you good advice, if you’ll promise not to laugh at me.”
Then they walked on, talking of other things, until the girl’s spirits were restored to their normal attitude of a sedate, candid cheeriness. She grew quite talkative, discoursing to him of various small happenings in the house, and not noticing, in her recovered good humor, that his answers were short and his manner grave and distrait.
As they retraced their steps the broad, yellow glow of the sunset deepened behind them, and before them burned on the windows of houses that climbed the hillsides still farther on. The water and its low-lying shores—flat lands where silver creeks lay embedded like the metal wires in cloisonné ware—were already veiled in a soft, purplish twilight which exhaled a creeping chilliness. At a high point, unobstructed by buildings, they turned to watch the sun drop into the sea. For a moment it seemed to hesitate, resting on the horizon like a spinning copper disk; then it slipped out of sight, and the darkness rushed up from unexpected places and swept over the prospect, blotting out all distinctions of color. Only in the west there was a great gold radiance, against which little red clouds floated like bits of raveled silk.
John Gault, as was his Sunday custom, dined with his brother’s family. After dinner he left early, before the usual callers appeared—generally young men come to bow the knee at Letitia’s shrine.
For a space he walked down the street with a quick, decided step. Then, of a sudden, he stopped, and stood looking at the pavement, uncertain and irresolute. The car which had borne him to the other side of town on the last evening that he had dined with the Mortimer Gaults glided across the avenue some blocks farther down. He heard its bell and saw the long funnel of light from its lantern pierce the darkness before it.
He stood for a moment watching it, then turned in the opposite direction and stopped. As he hesitated, he heard in the distance the bell of the next car. With a smothered ejaculation, he wheeled about and ran for it. He caught the car and swung himself to a front seat.