“That might do,” he said, after a moment’s thought, and speaking even more deliberately than usual. “I suppose I ought to tell you this doesn’t seem to me a specially wise thing, your coming back here. Don’t misunderstand me; I wouldn’t say anything to discourage you, for the world. And since you have come, it wasn’t of much use, perhaps, to say that. Still, I wanted to be frank with you, and I don’t understand why you did come. It doesn’t appear that the Fairchilds thought it was wise, either.”
“She did,” answered Jessica, quickly, “because she understood what I meant—what I had in mind to do when I got here. But I’m sure he laughed at it when she explained it to him; she didn’t say so, but I know he did. He is a man, and men don’t understand.”
Reuben smiled a little, but still compassionately. “Then perhaps I would better give it up in advance, without having it explained at all,” he said.
“No; when I saw your name on the sign, down on Main Street, this afternoon, I knew that you would see what I meant. I felt sure you would: you are different from the others. You were kind to me when I was a girl, when nobody else was. You know the miserable childhood I had, and how everybody was against me—all but you.”
Jessica had begun calmly enough, but she finished with something very like a sob, and, rising abruptly, went to the window.
Reuben sat still, thinking over his reply. The suggestion that he differed from the general run of men was not precisely new to his mind, but it had never been put to him in this form before, and he was at a loss to see its exact bearings. Perhaps, too, men are more nearly alike in the presence of a tearful young woman than under most other conditions. At all events, it took him a long time to resolve his answer—until, in fact, the silence had grown awkward.
“I’m glad you have a pleasant recollection of me,” he said at last. “I remember you very well, and I was very sorry when you left the school.” He had touched the painful subject rather bluntly, but she did not turn or stir from her post near the window, and he forced himself forward. “I was truly much grieved when I heard of it, and I wished that I could have talked with you, or could have known the circumstances in time, or—that is to say—that I could have helped you. Nothing in all my teacher experience pained me more. I—”
“Don’t let us talk of it,” she broke in. Then she turned and came close beside him, and lifted her hand as if to place it on his shoulder by a frank gesture of friendship. The hand paused in mid-air, and then sank to her side. “I know you were always as good as good could be. You don’t need to tell me that.”
“And I wasn’t telling you that, I hope,” he rejoined, speaking more freely now. “But you have never answered my question. What is it that Seth Fairchild failed to understand, yet which you are sure I will comprehend? Perhaps it is a part of your estimate of me that I should see without being told; but I don’t.”
“My reason for coming back? I hardly know how to explain it to you.”