“If it could have been managed in a different fashion it would have pleased me better,” Grant said, with a little impatient gesture. “I am sorry I frightened you, Hetty.”
The colour crept back into Hetty’s cheeks. “I was frightened, but only just a little at first,” she said. “It was when I saw who it was and heard the boys below, that I grew really anxious.”
She did not look at the man as she spoke; but it was evident to Miss Schuyler that he understood the significance of the avowal.
“Then,” he said, “I must try to get away again more quietly.”
“You can’t,” said Hetty. “Not until the man by the store goes away. You have taken too many chances already. You have driven a long way in the cold. Take off that big coat, and Flo will make you some coffee.”
Grant, turning, drew the curtains aside a moment, and let them fall back again. Then, he took off the big coat and sat down with a little smile of contentment beside the glowing stove on which Miss Schuyler was placing a kettle.
“Well,” he said, “I am afraid you will have to put up with my company until that fellow goes away; and I need not tell you that this is very nice for me. One hasn’t much time to feel it, but it’s dreadfully lonely at Fremont now and then.”
Hetty nodded sympathetically, for she had seen the great desolate room at Fremont where Grant and Breckenridge passed the bitter nights alone. The man’s half-audible sigh was also very expressive, for after his grim life he found the brightness and daintiness of the little room very pleasant. It was sparely furnished; but there was taste in everything, and in contrast with Fremont its curtains, rugs, and pictures seemed luxurious. Without were bitter frost and darkness, peril, and self-denial; within, warmth and refinement, and the companionship of two cultured women who were very gracious to him. He also knew that he had shut himself out from the enjoyment of their society of his own will, that he had but to make terms with Torrance, and all that one side of his nature longed for might be restored to him.
Larry was as free from sensuality as he was from asceticism; but there were times when the bleak discomfort at Fremont palled upon him, as did the loneliness and half-cooked food. His overtaxed body revolted now and then from further exposure to Arctic cold and the deprivation of needed sleep, while his heart grew sick with anxiety and the distrust of those he was toiling for. He was not a fanatic, and had very slight sympathy with the iconoclast, for he had an innate respect for the law, and vague aspirations after an ampler life made harmonious by refinement, as well as a half-comprehending reverence for all that was best in art and music. There are many Americans like him, and when such a man turns reformer he has usually a hard row, indeed, to hoe.
“What do you do up there at nights?” asked Hetty.