The head was full of what Suzanne had said. Though he had offered no agreement to her suggestions, he had noticed the change in Esther. He had noticed it soon after the robbery, in fact before that, for it had dated from the evening when she dined at his house, the night the jewels were taken. Disturbance grew in him as he thought:—if so shallow a creature as Suzanne could see it, others could. And Suzanne had no sense, no realization of the weight of words. She might go round chattering like a fool and get the girl talked about. It would be the decent thing to give Esther a hint, put her wise to the fact that she ought to brighten up—not give any one a chance to say she was not as she had been.
As his long, muscular body slid through the water he decided to go over and have a talk with her. The decision cheered him, for to be with Esther Maitland was the keenest pleasure he knew.
Suzanne had told him she and her mother would be out that afternoon, so at three—the hour they were to leave—he set out for Grasslands by the wood path. As he crossed the garden his questing glance met an encouraging sight—Esther Maitland sitting under a group of maples at the end of the terrace. She was alone, an empty chair beside her, her head bowed over a book.
Her welcoming smile was very sweet; his eye noticed a faint color rise in her cheeks as he came up. These signs were so agreeable that he would like to have sat there, placidly enjoying her presence, but he was a person who once possessed by an idea "had to get it out of his system." This he proceeded to do, advancing on his subject with what he thought was a crafty indirectness:
"You know, Miss Maitland, you're not a credit to Long Island."
She raised her brows, deprecating, also amused:
"What have I done?"
"It's what you haven't done. We expect people to come here worn and weary and then blossom like the rose. You've gone back on the tradition."
She stretched a hand for a bundle of knitting—a soldier's muffler—on the table beside her:
"I don't feel worn or weary and I'm sorry I look so."