“I am not sure that I want you to come,” she answered thoughtfully.
“Why?”
“I am hoping you will go quietly away altogether after we land. If you come up to Keuka, sooner or later, mother will know you are not Mr. Richard and—it is a small matter, but I know her: she will not think it small. It will strike her like a blow ... and she is getting old. She tries to conceal it, but I know. The whole family have sat back and let her carry the burden, but it has always been done so well that we never inquired.... I’m just beginning to see what it has meant to her. At ‘Red Jacket’——”
“What’s that?”
“We call our place ‘Red Jacket’ after a local Indian chief. ‘Red Jacket’ is really a huge plantation. We have farm land, vineyards, gardens—wonderful gardens!—and a big household. She manages every inch of it and has always done so. It’s beginning to tell on her now.... She wouldn’t understand our studied deception. It would break her; I’m sure it would.”
“I understand,” he agreed. “All right.” Silently they watched the swirling water. “Walter interests me,” he explained, “interests me more than you can guess, but I can give him up.... Well, we’ve got a day or two left. Let’s make the best of it. The boy stirs me like the answer to a hard puzzle. I’m built that way. I throw my whole life into the next thing that attracts my curious mind.... To be honest, I’m afraid I don’t care anything for the boy. Does that seem brutal?”
“No; I understand. You are like a surgeon performing a fine operation.”
“Exactly. I think I’m on the way to fix that boy up! Really! I’m tremendously excited about it.... By the way, wasn’t there something in that yacht race about climbing—I mean in the thing that Walter did that set the mater off?”
“Why, yes!” she exclaimed, catching some of his excitement. “I remember now. He went aloft to disentangle the peak halyard. That’s it! Mother was watching the race with a glass, and she nearly fainted when she saw him leg up. She knew he couldn’t swim. The boat was scudding down the Lake with the wind back of her; he did that leg in less than a minute and she was heeling over nearly to the water. And Captain Tyler said that that’s what won the cup, Walter’s shinning up the mast.”
“By Jove!” Richard seized her hand and wrung it fervently. “We’re getting warm, Jerry! We’re getting warm! That’s what he meant by climbing trees——”