And those were pleasant days to Claire as well. Once, and that not long before, she had taken but little interest in Clarence Vaughan. She had thought of him very much as had Madeline that first night of their meeting, when she looked at him sitting near her in a railway carriage, and regarded him as just a "somewhat odd young man with a good face." Now, Madeline thought him not only the noblest but the handsomest of men. And Claire was beginning to agree with her.
But on one thing she was determined. Doctor Vaughan must learn to look upon her only as a friend, and he must learn to love Madeline. So Claire and Clarence vied with each other in chanting the praises of Madeline Payne, and learned to know each other better because of her.
One day when he called, Claire chanced to be alone. Somehow she found it hard to be quite at her ease when there was no Olive at hand, behind whom to screen her personality from the eyes that might overlook that sisterly barrier, but could not overleap it. If his eyes had said less, or if she could have compelled her lips to say more! But her usually active tongue seemed to lack for words and she found herself talking in a reckless and somewhat incoherent manner upon all sorts of topics, which she dragged forward in order to keep in check the words which the look in his eyes heralded so plainly.
When she was almost at her wit's end, and tempted to flee ingloriously in search of Olive, that lady entered and Claire felt as if saved from lunacy. But she could not quite shake off the consciousness that had awakened in her, and soon framed an excuse for leaving the room. Once having escaped, she did not return, nor did Olive see her again until she came down to dinner, and Doctor Vaughan had gone.
While lingering over that meal, Olive said, after they had talked of Madeline through three courses, "I think, by-the-by, that Doctor Vaughan expected to see you again before he went."
If I were writing of impossible heroines, I might say that Claire looked conscious; but real women who are not all chalk and water, do not display their feelings so readily to their mothers and sisters. So Claire Keith looked up with the countenance of an astonished kitten.
"To see me? What for?"
"How should I know, if you don't?" smiling slightly.
"And how should I know?" carelessly.
"Well, perhaps I was mistaken. But why have you kept your room all this afternoon?"