"Yes, that's the way it seems, sometimes," said the doctor. The remark was so unintelligible that Burton wondered whether he had dropped his eyes soon enough.
[CHAPTER XVII]
A TEMPORARY ABERRATION
For a moment, as he stood in the doorway, watching her, he had a vision. He saw her in the music-room at Oversite, her head outlined against the stained-glass window that he had helped Rachel choose, while Philip, restless, radiant, pervasive Philip, hung over the piano, turning her music, or looking at her with those adoring eyes of his. He shook his head impatiently, the picture vanished, and he went forward to the piano.
Leslie looked up with a smile, and though her fingers kept on playing, that appeared to offer no bar to their owner's conversing.
"It was very wise and kind of you to get father to talking about the Indians," she said, looking at him with grateful eyes. "It took his mind from these worrying affairs. He has a lot of enthusiasm for the Indians and the old times in the woods."
"That's the way we get credit we don't deserve, and miss praise that belongs to us," said Burton. "As De Bergerac said, 'I have done better since.' But I drew your father out for purely selfish reasons. I wanted information. I am going up to the Reservation myself to-morrow to make a few inquiries."
"What if something happens while you are away?" she said, in evident alarm.
"It isn't likely to, while your brother is in jail."
She looked so dismayed and reproachful that he hastened to make his meaning clearer. "Oh, merely because this evil genius of his will be too shrewd to try anything on while your brother is so evidently and publicly out of the reckoning. I think you are quite safe for the immediate present. But at the same time I hope you will be very watchful, and if anything happens that is out of the ordinary, be sure to make a note of it, and let me know when I come back."