CHAPTER VII
Late August hung heavily over Quinton. The city folks, who counted their year's playtime by two weeks' vacation, had come and gone, in relays. The artists, never tiring of the changing charms of this new-found beauty-spot, gave no heed to the passing season. Only cold, and acute bodily suffering could attract their attention. Good, poor, and indifferent revelled in the inspiration-haunted Hills and magnificent sweep of shore.
The natives counted their gains with bated breath and dreamed visions of future summers that made them dizzy.
Poor Susan Jane was the only woman, apparently, upon the mainland, who had swung at anchor through all the changed conditions. Susan, who once had been the ruling spirit of the village and Station! Susan, whose sharp tongue and all-seeing eye had governed her kind! Susan had been obliged to gather such bits of driftwood as had floated to her chair, during the history-making season,—and draw such pleasure from it as she could. The strain had worn upon the paralyzed body. The active mind had stretched and stretched for material until the helpless frame weakened. The sharp tongue was two-edged now, and gossip that reached Susan Jane assumed the blackest color. Her searching eyes saw through everything, and gripped all secrets.
David's songs, as he mounted the winding stairs, took on a soberer strain. Sometimes he omitted, even at the top, his hilarious outburst to the "lobster pots;" and his sigh and laugh combination was an hourly occurrence.
Janet noticed it all. She was alive to the atmospheric chill of the village, though in no wise understanding it. She was troubled and fretted by many things, but she went her way. The money she had earned by posing she dealt out in miserly fashion to Susan Jane; while at the same time she assumed many household cares to ease David, whom she loved.
There was no more money coming to her now, for after the scene in the hut upon the Hills Thornly had gone away for a week, and upon his return he had told Janet he would send her a message when again he needed her. The man's tone had been most kindly, but it seemed a rebuff from which the girl had not been able to recover. Once or twice she had stolen to the hut, when she was sure the master was away; always the key was in its hiding place. Softly she had gone in and stood in the sacred room. The same picture stood ever upon the easel, the same beautiful unfinished picture! Upon one visit the girl had taken a rare pimpernel blossom she had found in a lonely hollow and laid it on the empty stool before the canvas. It was still there when she went again! Faded and neglected it lay before the shrine, and the message never came that was to call her to the Hills.
The people of the village, too, were different. They were busy and took small notice of the girl. Business, Janet thought, was the only reason. Mrs. Jo G. in particular was changed, but it had been a hard summer for Mrs. Jo G., and when, after many attempts to secure Janet as waitress, she had failed, she turned upon the girl sharply.
"You might be doin' worse things!" she snapped, "you're growin' more an' more like yer ma, an' it ain't t' yer credit!" That was the first inroad the oncoming wave of sentiment had made in the bulkhead of local reticence.