Miss Gibbie took up the tea-caddy. "Do you think you've accomplished great things by coming? Judging by your manner of late, not to mention your looks, you haven't been drunk with happiness since you reached this town of historic importance and modern inconsequence. But of course—" she tilted the spout of the kettle into the teapot—"my suggestion that you stay where you belong was a mere woman's, and you saw fit to ignore it. Men like to bring blessings on their head—and my friend John Maxwell is most verily a man."
"You seem to forget it." He got up and began to walk backward and forward the length of the room. "I wonder if I am sometimes. When I see that round, red, moon-faced pig driving around town with Mary, taking long horseback rides with her, and going to see her whenever he pleases, I don't know how I keep from killing him. He isn't fit to be in the same town with her. I know the man, went to school with him. He's a cad and a coward and a big fat fool. He has some money— that is, his father has—and a smearing of education, but he's coarse and common and not to be trusted. Van Orm was a gentleman at least, and if Mary wanted—"
"Does Mary know as much of your friend Mr. Fielding as you do?"
Miss Gibbie handed him a cup of tea, but he waved it back.
"If she doesn't it's because she's trying to be blind and deaf. I have seen practically nothing of her since I came down. You think I shouldn't have come. Perhaps I shouldn't, but I'm here, and for the present am going to stay. For six months I've held off, but through them we've been generally friendly, and I was hoping it might work, the thing you suggested. I stayed away as long as I could. But I had to come. I had to see for myself—see how she was, even if I came through hell."
"A trip through hell might help many men. The trouble is they might not be able to pass though. Ten days of it—"
"Is more than man is meant to stand. You are quite right." He stopped and looked down at her. "What is it? What is the matter with Mary? she is horribly polite, but were I a leper she could not hold herself more aloof. Morning, noon, and night she has engagements, and frequently with that brass-coated mine-owner of the Middle West. Do you think"—his face darkened, fear had unnerved him—"do you think she has any idea of marrying him?"
Miss Gibbie's head turned. The cup on its way to her lips was held back and her left eye closed.
"Marrying whom? That Fielding person?" The tea was blown into bubbles. "He uses a toothpick in public. Do you think Mary would marry a thing of that kind?"
He laughed begrudgingly. "I can't imagine it, but neither can I imagine why she is doing what she does—why she treats me as if I were the most incidental acquaintance."
Miss Gibbie put down her cup, and pushed her chair a little farther from the fire. "You don't have to, John. There are some things God doesn't expect of a man. One is to see through a woman. He knows the limitations of the male, and won't hold you responsible. Sit down!" She waved to the chair in front of her. "I can't talk to any one I can't see."