“No,” Lee replied, with effort; “he was here a few days ago, but he’s gone back to the forest.”
Redfield studied the girl with keen gaze, perceiving a passionate restraint in her face.
“How is your mother?” he asked, politely.
Lee smiled faintly. “She’s able to sit up. Won’t you come in and see her?”
“With pleasure,” assented Redfield, “but I want to see you alone. I have something to say to you.” He turned to his superior. “Just go into the café, Dalton. I’ll see you in a moment.”
Lee Virginia, hitherto ashamed of the house, the furniture, the bed—everything—led the way without a word of apology. It was all detached now, something about to be left behind, like a bad garment borrowed in a time of stress. Nothing mattered since Ross did not return.
Lize, looking unwontedly refined and gentle, was sitting in a big rocking-chair with her feet on a stool, her eyes fixed on the mountains, which showed through the open window. All the morning a sense of profound change, of something passing, had oppressed her. Now that she was about to leave the valley, its charm appealed to her. She was tearing up a multitude of tiny roots of whose existence she had hitherto remained unaware. “I belong here,” she acknowledged, silently. “I’d be homesick anywhere else on God’s earth. It’s rough and fly-bit, and all that, but so am I. I wouldn’t fit in anywhere that Lee belonged.”
She acknowledged an especial liking for Redfield, and she had penetration enough, worldly wisdom enough, to know that Lee belonged more to his world than to her own, and that his guidance and friendship were worth more, much more, than that of all the rest of the country, her own included. Therefore, she said: “I’m mighty glad to see you, Reddy. Sit down. You’ve got to hear my little spiel this time.”
Redfield, perched on the edge of a tawdry chair, looked about (like the charity visitor in a slum kitchen) without intending to express disgust; but it was a dismal room in which to be sick, and he pitied the woman the more profoundly as he remembered her in the days when “all out-doors” was none too wide for her.
Lize began, abruptly: “I’m down, but not out; in fact, I was coming up to see you this afternoon. Lee and I are just about pulling out for good.”