“I ain’t got much cause to complain,” said Tina resignedly. She had not thanked Mr. Clare, but neither of them remembered it as she moved away with her slow, weary step, looking, with her careworn face and thin, bent form, twenty years older than her real age.
“You don’t care to turn back, do you?” asked Mr. Clare as they walked on.
“I promised to come, and I have no reason to avoid—any one,” said Louis with a gentle dignity not unbecoming. He looked much older than twenty-one, for his youth had ripened rapidly; years of thought and care for others had developed his judgment and strengthened his character, and intercourse with such a man as Ernest Clare had opened new worlds to his intellect and conscience. Now, as his companion glanced down at him, he wondered whether in her travels the fair Rosalie had met with anything truer, purer, or nobler than the young man’s fair face, with the open brow set in golden-brown waves, the steadfast blue eyes, and firm, sweet lips, under the heavy mustache. It was not a sad face, though just now it wore a certain quiet wistfulness; but there was a chiselling about the lips, a resolute gravity upon the white brow, that are not often seen upon the sunny side of thirty.
He was tall and well made, without equalling Mr. Clare’s height and magnificent proportions; yet there was nothing even apparently unsuitable about their companionship; and, spite of the difference in age, Louis knew himself to be in all Micklegard his leader’s chosen friend; more companionable than Fritz, more sympathetic than even Father McClosky.
Virginia Dare, with Frank Randolph in close attendance, was sitting at the parlor window, and recognized them as they approached.
“Grand Dieu!” she exclaimed, for she was now much given to French ejaculations,—“Grand Dieu! voilà, our friend the shoemaker and that handsome carpenter-clergyman. What a figure the man has! Just look at his shoulders and arms! mais c’est une taille de prince!”
“Don’t be silly, Virgie,” advised Pinkie rather sardonically; “it’s no good getting up an enthusiasm for that man; he’s a star decidedly out of your sphere.”
“He’s a cad,” remarked Frank, who was fond of using Anglican words, without considering their applicability to American civilization. “No fellow that wasn’t would make such a beastly fool of himself;” but further comment was cut short by the entrance of the persons criticised.
It was with a strange mingling of emotions that Pinkie saw her boy lover enter the room, and received a greeting kindly but grave, as from one immeasurably her superior. Not that Louis had any such idea; it was, indeed, in search of Pinkie that his eyes had involuntarily wandered, and the touch of her soft little hand gave him a strange thrill; but there was no shade of difference in his greeting to her and to Miss Dare; it was only Mrs. Richards, by whom he sat down, and on whose hand he gently laid his own, who detected any tremor in voice or manner; and Alice looked into his face and sighed heavily.
The conversation soon turned upon financial matters, and Mr. Randolph took occasion to ask, half maliciously, how “Prices” was weathering the present business storm.