Besides Roger and his father, only Mrs. Marshall and Jane were at home. Rosamund was in Wisconsin, and no one was sorry to have her away. She was a guest of Mrs. Bates at Lake Geneva—the central figure of a house-party, in fact. Mrs. Bates's fondness for nature did not stop with flowers; it led her to the fields and woods where they grew. No sooner was the back of the winter fairly broken than she began to preach the gospel of country life. She took the cream of June, and left to later comers the skimmed milk of July and August. She always saw that her Wisconsin place was ready for her by the middle of May; then for the next five months she passed back and forth between town and country, according to the nature of her engagements and the character of the weather.
Truesdale was in Wisconsin, too—but not of the house-party. "You know, my dear," Mrs. Bates said to Jane, "I had meant to have your brother, but—"
Jane bowed her head and never thought of venturing to ask her how she knew. That same night Jane slowly tore her plans for the working-girls' home into long strips and burned them in the gas, one at a time. "Pa'll never listen to a word about anything like this now."
Truesdale left behind no precise indications of his movements. The only person to whom he announced anything like a programme was Arthur Fasten, who met him on the way to the station, with his bag in one hand and his kit in the other.
"Off, are you?" called Paston. "Don't you begin the season rather early?"
"Just for a few days," replied Truesdale; "a little sketching tour up
North. Change of scene and air, you know."
"Where are you going?"
"Oh, 'most anywhere. I shall be at Bellagio to-morrow, and at Pontresina the day after. Then I shall dip down towards Scheveningen. And Zante, if possible—I have always wanted to try Zante." He smiled jovially. "I hear there's a lovely ruined abbey at Fort Atkinson—everybody does it; and they say, too, that the capital at Madison is a grand old structure."
He gave a hitch to his light valise and moved on with a diminished smile.
"Of course you've got your Cook's ticket and your meal coupons?" called
Paston, grinning broadly.