"You're going, aren't you?" he asked casually, as if the matter were of no moment with him, but I saw how he reached for my coat as I nodded my head, and he bade Ann Lisbeth not to take up so much of his valuable time as she fussed a little over the careless way I fixed my veil, and insisted on my letting her pin it on properly.
The woods were beautiful, but I saw their beauty only in a vague, fantastic way. My thoughts were in a sad tumult, partly on my own account, partly on Alfred's, for I felt that his strange words spoken at the hall door would be followed up by something far more manifest.
I knew him so well that there was no need for me to agitate my mind over whether his words and looks meant anything, as I had done in the case of Richard Chalmers that day in the orchard when he had said "pretty things." Ah, he had said them so prettily!
How could I let Alfred know, without wounding him and spoiling our comradeship? Or would it be better not to let him know? To ignore his words and avoid such dangerous ground in the future—until he had forgotten them himself. Even the strongest, staunchest lovers cease to love after a while, when there is nothing for the flame to feed upon, I argued, and I set about steering away from any reference that might lead back to the perilous line of talk which had been so mercifully interrupted.
I espied a redbird—belated little wanderer—sitting on the fence by the side of the road, and I began telling Alfred of Mammy Lou's superstitions concerning redbirds and other little creatures too happy and bright to have even a tinge of superstition attached to them. But as I laughed at the notion I made a wish, and saw with joy that the bird flew away out of view.
There is a queer admixture of the fatalist in my make-up and, as the redbird flew away, carrying my wish with him, I had a feeling that that wish would come to pass. It was a very simple, fervid, all-embracing affair—that I should see Richard Chalmers again very soon—and that he should love me.
The first time I had looked at that man's face I felt as if I had turned a leaf in the book of my destiny. When Rufe mentioned his name to me and I later learned that he was the same man whose face had formed the centerpiece of all my mental pictures, I fancied that Fate was about to keep her promise; and when he had lingered over saying good-by that night at home I felt as if my fancies might have a chance of coming true.
Then I had come up to the city and stayed for days and days, without hearing one word from him. This humiliated me until I was angry with myself for having ever given him a thought. I am of a proud nature which would demand far more of a man than he should ever see that I gave.
I was certainly not in love with Richard Chalmers as I drove with Alfred out that country road, but I was intensely fascinated, so much so that my thoughts flew to him with the flight of the redbird, and for a while I forgot that I was neglecting my task of keeping Alfred's mind diverted.
From the country we drove back to Alfred's office and I stayed in the reception-room and looked at magazines while he was busy with some patients in his private office. It was getting well toward evening and the stenographer was beginning to arrange her desk in readiness to leave when Alfred came into the room and began to fume about the delay in being summoned to court. He suggested that I telephone Cousin Eunice that I would be late, which I did, but I found that my absence was going to make small difference to them, as she and Rufe were going out to a lecture, and I should be thrown on the society of Waterloo for the evening.