Well, I will tell you of one conversation at least between Mr. Nugent and myself. A very celebrated—you may be sure he is in the superlative class—lung specialist came up the other day to visit the Chenoweths. Although Bertie is apparently so much better, the moment this doctor appeared I felt that I must have a verdict. At first I thought of appealing to Mr. Rogers, but finally concluded that as I had talked so much to Mr. Nugent it would be positively unkind to pass him over; besides it is so much easier to speak to him about anything. The one thing that keeps me from feeling the perfect freedom of friendship when I am alone with him is the fear that he suddenly will lose his head and take me in his arms and kiss me. He looks passion incarnate and I know that if he ever did let go he would be like one of these alarming electrical storms that visit us every two or three days. However, I have managed him rather well, so far.
Well, I confided in him, and he engaged to persuade Dr. Soulé and Bertie to meet for examination, and pledged himself to get the truth out of the doctor and tell me every word of it. It was finally agreed—Bertie was a long time being persuaded—that they were to meet this morning in Mr. Nugent’s room and that at four this afternoon Mr. N. and I would meet at a certain spot in the forest, where I should hear the fateful truth—I thought the appointment was justifiable in the circumstances.
By three I was so nervous that I could not stay in the house and I plunged into the forest, praying that I would meet no one else. Fortunately our camp is alone on our side of the lake and the others prefer the trails behind the Club House and at the north end. I walked far down the mountain to quiet my nerves a little, then returned to the place where we had agreed to meet. It was the rocky brook I told you of, but some distance below the boulder. The opposite bank sloped up gently, its gloom hung with scattered leaves and sun-flecks. I sat down on a rock among the alders, still nervous, my hand, indeed, pressed against my heart, but—what strange tricks the mind plays us—my terrible anxiety crossed by imaginings of what Mr. N. would do and say should he bring me the worst. In a moment, too, my mind was diverted by the dearest sight. A chipmunk—a tiny thing no longer than my finger with a snow white breast and reddish brown back striped with grey and ivory—sat on his hind legs on a stone opposite me eating a nut which he held in his front paws. His black restless eyes never left my face as he tore that nut apart with teeth and nail, and he seemed to have made up his little mind that I was quite stationary—he did seem to enjoy that nut so much. His bushy tail stood straight up behind and curled back from his head. It was quite an inch longer than himself, and not a bit of him moved but those tight little arms and those crunching teeth. He ate the entire nut, and when he had finished and dropped the shell, he still sat there on his hind legs, glancing about, his eyes never wandering far from my face, and absorbing my attention so completely that I quite forgot the apprehension that had torn me for the past four hours. But our mutual interest was shattered by a footstep. I sprang to my feet and he scampered into the ferns.
The moment I saw Mr. N.’s face I knew that I was not to hear the worst, at all events; and then, for the life of me, I could not let the subject be broached. I hurriedly commenced to tell him about the chipmunk and he sat down on the stone it had deserted and listened as if he never had heard of a chipmunk before.
“I’ll try and get you one,” he said. “I think one might be tamed.”
“Oh, I should love it!” I exclaimed. “It would be company for hours at a time. I am sure it has intelligence.”
“I am afraid you have many lonely hours,” he said. “I think you do not like our people here.”
“No,” I said, “they fidget me. I really admire them and I never in all my life believed that so many clever people could be got together in one place. But—that is it—they are not my own sort.”
“No, they are not, and I have a plan to propose to you, that I think might be carried out now that your brother is so much better. I have a number of friends at another lake about ten miles from here. They are very different from these—far more like what you have been used to. They belong to one of the worldly sets in New York, and, while they are quite as clever as our friends here, cleverness is not their métier and they are not so self-conscious about it. They bought Chipmunk Lake and built cottages there that they might go into camp whenever they felt that they needed rest more than Europe or Newport—Should you like to visit there?”
“Yes, but how?”