"I should rather they were interesting, but even if they are not really exciting, I'll promise to read at least three or four of them."
"To please me?" queried Amy.
"Well, partly to please you, but more to—to—well, to give me something to think about. Everything seems so dull and stupid this winter, that I'm going to try a homœopathic remedy and try to read dull books—just to see if I can't strengthen my mind."
Then Amy, noticing that Brenda seemed far from happy, wisely asked no questions, and as they walked across the Common to the station they talked of everything except the subject that lay nearest Brenda's heart.
"How is Fritz Tomkins?" Brenda asked, almost abruptly, referring to an old playmate of Amy's, now a Harvard Sophomore.
"Oh, Fritz is doing splendidly. I hardly ever see him, and I'm so pleased."
"What a funny way of putting it—pleased because you seldom see him."
"Why, yes, because I know that means that he is so busy with his work that he has no time for other things. He has come to Wellesley only once this winter, and he tells me that he never worked so hard in his life."
If Amy's speech was a little disjointed, Brenda understood her, and in contrast her mind wandered to Arthur Weston. He, too, was busy, and perhaps doing his duty by remaining at his post in Washington. But unlike Amy, she did not feel pleased that he could so contentedly keep his back turned to his Boston friends. Consequently she sent only the briefest answers to his letters, and his replies became at last, if possible, briefer than hers.
Belle, however, kept her informed of Arthur's doings, and Brenda was never quite sure whether the information that she gave her was intended to please or to trouble her. She wrote, for example, of a riding party to Chevy Chase, where Arthur and Annabel Harmon had led all the others in gayety.