Mrs. Farquhar laughed.
"Mavy," she asked, "do you find living in some degree of comfort, and devoting your intelligence to a task that will probably pay you, so very intolerable?"
Thorne smiled and made a little, confidential gesture.
"I must confess that I don't find it quite as unpleasant as I had expected. But you haven't given me your opinion on the point that concerns me most."
"Then," said Mrs. Farquhar, with an air of reflection, "while Alison has naturally not said anything to me on the subject, I don't think you need consider your case as altogether desperate."
She smiled at Thorne, who swung himself up into his wagon and drove away.
CHAPTER XVIII
NEVIS'S VISITOR
Florence Hunter had lately returned from Toronto and was sitting on the veranda toward the middle of the afternoon in an unusually thoughtful mood. Among other reasons for this, there was the fact that she had spent a good deal of money while she was away, and she was far from sure that she had received its full value. Most of the people she had met in Toronto appeared to be endued with irritatingly respectable, old-fashioned views, and as a result of it they could not be induced to forget that she was a married woman separated for a few weeks from a self-sacrificing husband. Indeed, one or two of them went so far as to condole with her for his absence, and their general attitude imposed on her an unwelcome restraint. There was certainly one exception, but this man had no tact, and the lady who stood sponsor for her openly frowned at his too marked devotion, while some of the others laughed. Florence at length got rid of him summarily, and then half regretted it when nobody else aspired to fill his place.
It had, further, occurred to her in Elcot's absence that he had a number of strong points, after all. He was quiet and steadfast, not to be moved from his purpose by anger or cajolery, and though this was sometimes troublesome, there was no doubt that he was a man who could be relied upon. She had nothing to fear, except, perhaps, her own imprudence, while she was in his care. Then, although she would hardly have expected it before she went away, she found the spacious wooden house pleasantly cool and quiet after the stir and rush of life in the hot city, and Elcot's unobtrusive regard for her comfort soothing. He never fussed, but when she wanted anything done he was almost invariably at hand. She determined to be more gracious to him in the future, for she was troubled with a slightly uncomfortable feeling that he might have had something to complain of in this respect in the past.