“I will tell you,” she said at last, nervously, “why grandmother—or, no, I will not tell you! You have no right to ask. Don’t come any further, I am near enough to the house now. Good night.”
She had hurried away from him. He watched her disappear in the darkness, then turned and walked meditatively home.
He was not so sure as he had been that it was easy to understand women.
CHAPTER XV.—MR. RICHARD ANSDELL.
It was no light task to spend a vacation contentedly on the farm. There were thousands of city people who did it, and seemed to enjoy it, but Seth found it difficult to understand how they contrived to occupy themselves. What work on a farm meant, he knew very well; but the trick of idling in the country was beyond him. It was too hot, in these July days, for driving much, and besides, Albert rarely invited him into the buggy when the grays were brought around to the step. The two brothers saw little of each other, in fact. It was not precisely a coolness, but Albert seemed to have other things on his mind beside fraternal entertainment. The old pastime of fishing, too, failed him. In the renovation of the house his fine pole and tackle had somehow disappeared, and he had no money wherewith to replace them. He had entered upon his vacation unexpectedly, at a time when he happened to be particularly short of cash—and there was something in Albert’s manner and tone which rendered it impossible to apply to him, even if pride had not forbidden it.
There was, it is true, the increasing delight of being in Isabel’s company, but alongside this delight grew a doubt—a doubt which the young man shrank from recognizing and debating, but which forced its presence upon his mind, none the less—a doubt whether it was the part of wisdom to encourage too much of a friendship with his sister-in-law. This friendship had already reached a stage where Aunt Sabrina sniffed at its existence, and she hinted dimly to Seth of the perils which lurked in the lures of a citified siren, with an expression of face and a pointedness of emphasis which clearly had a domestic application. There was nothing in this, of course, but the insensate meddlesomeness of a disagreeable old maid, Seth said to himself, but still it annoyed him.
More serious, though, was his suspicion—lying dormant sometimes for days, then suddenly awakened by a curt word or an intent glance—that Albert disliked to see him so much with Isabel. Often this rendered him extremely nervous, for Isabel had no discretion (so the young man put it to himself) and displayed her pleasure in his society, her liking for him, quite as freely in her husband’s presence as when they were alone. There was nothing in this, either, only that it made him uneasy. Hence it came about that, just when one set of inclinations most urgently prompted him to stay about the house, another set often prevailed upon him to absent himself. On these occasions he generally walked over to Thessaly, and chatted with John.
“John and I have so much to talk about, you know, being both newspaper men,” he used to say, with a feeling that he owed an explanation of some sort to Isabel. “And then I can see the daily papers there. That gets to be a necessity with a journalist—as much so as his breakfast.”