Looking out over the river, the woman spoke as if thinking aloud: “This is just the sort of place he would love, Harry—the river and hills and woods. He never cared for the city—always wanted to get away into the country somewhere. Tell me, what is she really like? Does she look like—like—well,—like any of our crowd?”
One by one, the man picked a number of pebbles from among the dead leaves and the short grass within reach of his hand, as he answered: “Oh, I was just kidding when I raved about her to the bunch.” One by one, he flipped the bits of stone into the water. “She really doesn't amount to much. Honestly, I hardly noticed her.”
The woman continued speaking as though thinking her thoughts aloud: “Brian was a good man, Harry. That bank affair was really my fault. He never would have done such a thing if I hadn't devilled him all the time for more money, and made such a fuss about his wasting so much time in his everlasting writing. I'd hate to have him caught and sent to the 'pen' now.”
“You're a good sport, Martha,” he returned heartily. “I know just how you feel about it. And I can promise you that there is not one of our crowd that will ever whisper a thing. They are not that kind, and you know how they all like you. Come, dear. Don't bother your head about it any more. I don't like to see you like this. Let us go up to the house, and show them how game you are,—shall we?”
He put his arm about her, but the woman gently pushed him away. “Don't do that, now, Harry. Let me think.”
“That is just what you must not do,” he retorted, with a laugh. “Thinking can't help matters. Come, let us go get a drink. That is what you need.”
She looked at him some time before she answered; then, with a quick movement, she sprang to her feet:
“All right! You're on!” she cried, with a reckless laugh. “But you'll go some if you keep up with me to-night.”
And so, that evening, while Brian Kent and Betty Jo from the porch of the little log house by the river watched the twinkling lights of the clubhouse windows, the party with mad merriment tried to help a woman to forget.
But save for the unnatural brightness of her eyes and the heightened color in her face, drink seemed to have little effect on Martha Kent that night. When at a late hour the other members of the wild company, in various flushed and dishevelled stages of intoxication, finally retired to their rooms, Martha, in her apartment, seated herself at the window to look away over the calm waters of The Bend to a single light that showed against the dark mountainside. The woman did not know that the light she saw was in Brian Kent's room.