It is amazing that people can get so well acquainted in such a short space of time when they are staying together in the same house, yet when neither of them is what you would call "easy to get acquainted with." I am not, I know, and I feel equally as sure that Sophie is the same way, yet you will notice that sometimes when two such diffident people are thrown together they will take a liking to each other right away.
It was this way with Sophie Chalmers and me. She is Richard's cousin and lives in some vague place "out west." She happened to be visiting some of the other Chalmers relatives in a near-by town for a few weeks this fall and I think Mrs. Chalmers must have felt that if she had to invite her it would be less trouble to have her when there were other guests, so she asked her to come and spend the Thanksgiving holidays with them. If the girl had been less obviously a sort of "poor relation" (though by no means looking the part) or if Mrs. Chalmers had not tried so persistently to keep her in the background the "unexpected" which happened in this case would have been less surprising.
For Mr. Maxwell had no more than walked into the drawing-room and been presented to her than he fell in love with her; and, like most merry-eyed people, he fell very deeply in love.
Even their meeting was most unusual—dramatic, you might call it. And, as it took place at the moment of our arrival, it served to divert somewhat the attention from my disheveled looks, which had been such a shock to Richard. "Mr. Maxwell—Miss Chalmers," some one had said, as we all passed into the house and the tall, rather tired-looking girl unfolded herself from one of the big chairs drawn up close to the hearth. She showed no surprise as she extended her hand to the new arrival, but Mr. Maxwell looked at her for a moment as he held her hand in his; then he asked quite simply: "Where have we met before?"
The question was so earnest and so direct that the girl's face flushed, but before she could even start to offer a suggestion as to whether they had met before or had not, Mrs. Chalmers hastily put in that there was little probability of a former meeting, inasmuch as Sophie had not been in this part of the country in several years.
"We have certainly met before," Mr. Maxwell persisted, his eyes still fastened on Sophie's face, and running his fingers through his hair, along the line of the scar, as if that could help him in remembering. "I am certain of that. And I should surely not be so discourteous as to acknowledge that I have forgotten—except there are so many things hazy in my mind—since that night just outside El Paso."
I, too, was watching Sophie intently, as we all were, and I saw her eyes wander to the scar along his forehead. She looked away, but in another moment had returned to it again, as if the queer little white line held a fascination for her. At his mention of El Paso she gave a distinct start, but regained her equilibrium almost immediately.
"I must be a very common-looking person," she said with a little laugh, turning to me as she spoke, "for I seldom meet a stranger who doesn't know some one whom I am so exactly like that the resemblance is startling!"
We had all moved about a little from the positions into which Mr. Maxwell's first earnest words had petrified us, and Mrs. Chalmers was beginning to say something about taking us to our rooms, when that persevering young man spoke again. He had not moved an inch, but stood there in the middle of the floor, his eyes fastened on Sophie's face.
"It's not your looks, that is, your looks are not so convincing as your—your voice," he said, his expression still showing his bewildered surprise; but something in the girl's face must have pleaded with him to change the subject, which he did, easily.