By tacit consent, neither spoke of the real object of Reggie’s visit to Riverside just then. There would be plenty of time for that when they should be alone after supper and have nothing to interrupt them.
“Beastly cold weather, what?” said Reggie, as he turned up the collar of his overcoat.
“It is pretty sharp,” agreed Joe; “but nothing to what it was the last time you were here. That was a blizzard for fair. Remember how we were all upset in the snow when we were trying to get to town from the train stalled in a snowdrift?”
“I remember, all right,” laughed Reggie. “We certainly had a fight for life that night.”
“And what a thoroughbred your sister was that night,” continued Joe, who was always anxious to bring the conversation round to Mabel. “Where lots of girls would have gone into hysterics, she was as cool and brave as any man could have been.”
“Mabel has class,” agreed Reggie carelessly. “I recall how she held the horses’ heads while we were righting the sleigh. Some plucky girl!”
“You bet she is!” responded Joe, with an enthusiasm that might have seemed suspicious to Reggie if the latter had not been so wrapped up in his own affairs that his talk with Joe was rather absent-minded and made no strong impression on him.
Joe was not long in discovering that Reggie’s trouble, whatever it was, sat heavily on him. He relapsed into monosyllables until the Matson home was reached.
The hearty welcome he received from all the members of the family thawed him out somewhat, and during the meal that followed—a meal into which Mrs. Matson had put all her housewifely skill because of the expected guest—he was more like the gay, care-free Reggie that they had previously known.