“But she tripped away so gaily—so gladly. It was exactly as though she wanted to leave us. And yet, heavens knows I’ve tried and tried ever since that—that terrible night to show her what she means to me——”
“You’ve done more than try, Romola—you’ve succeeded, if that’s any consolation to you. You’ve succeeded darned well.” He stared almost regretfully down the line at the rear of an observation-car swiftly diminishing into a small square dot where the rails came together. “Since you mention it, she did look powerfully chipper and cheerful a minute ago, hustling to climb aboard that Pullman—cheerfuller than she’s looked since we quit the trail last Wednesday. Lord, how I wish I could guarantee that kid was never going to have a minute’s unhappiness the rest of her life!” Something remotely akin to remorse was beginning to gnaw at Mr. Gatling’s heart cockles.
Indeed, something strongly resembling remorse beset him toward the close of this day. At the station when they detrained, no Shirley was on hand to greet them; nor was there sign of Shirley’s affianced, either. Up the slope from the tracks at the hotel a clerk wrenched himself from an importuning cluster of newly-arrived tourists for long enough to tell them Miss Gatling had left word she would be awaiting them in their rooms and wished them to come up immediately.
So they went up under escort of two college students serving as bell-hops. A bedroom door opened and out came Shirley—a crumpled, wobegone Shirley with a streaky swollen face.
“It’s all right, mater,” she said with a flickering trace of her usual jauntiness. “The alliance between the house of Gatling and the house of Tripier is off. So you can liven up. I’ll be your substitute for such crying as is done in this family during the next day or two. I’ve—I’ve been practising all afternoon.”
She eluded the lady’s outstretched arms and clung temporarily at her father’s breast.
“Dad,” she confessed brokenly, “I think I must have been a little bit loony these last two weeks. But, dad, I’ve taken the cure. It’s not nice medicine and it makes you feel miserable at first but I guess it’s good for what ails me.... Dad, have you seen—him?”
“Not yet.” Compassion for her was mixed in with his own secret exultation, as though he tasted a sweet cake that was iced with a most bitter icing.
“Well, when you do, you’ll understand. Even if he doesn’t!”