We left the church and in a few moments were climbing the mountain, a doubly difficult task now that the logs were slippery with rain. But the forest was so green and dripping, the sun-flecks glittered in the rain-drops, the depths looked so dark and wet, and full of sweet fragrant mystery! The odour of the balsam came down to us with a rush. Mr. Rogers is a pleasant companion at all times, but I like him particularly in the forest. He seems to need it so, to be so grateful for it. I fear I have only a dim inkling of what this brief dip into the wilderness means to the tired nervous practical New Yorker.
“I hear you want to leave us,” he said presently.
“Only for a few days. I am curious to see other lakes and other parts of the forest.”
“And other people? I am afraid you do not like my friends as well as I had hoped.”
“Ah! you are wrong,” I exclaimed with the warmth of insincerity. “They interest me tremendously. They are too clever for me, that is all. I don’t feel up to them.”
“You are far cleverer than any of them,” he replied, turning upon me that approving expression of which I have written, and smiling a trifle of warmth into his grave face. “Many of them are beginning to admit it quite frankly. The American nature is very generous, I assure you.”
“Mrs. Laurence and Mr. Rolfs never have admitted anything of the sort, I’ll wager,” I cried gaily.
“Well—no; but you see they are rather spoiled.”
“Nor Mr. William Lee Randolph,” I said, alluding to an author who arrived two days ago. “I dreamed all last night of cutting his conceit into little bits and watching them fly together again and cohere as snugly as if nothing had happened.”
“You are a severe critic, dear Lady Helen——”