There was dead, unbroken silence. In the tense awkwardness of the moment the young man, not knowing what to say, was noting shyly the curl of the girl's dark lashes against her scarlet cheek and the droop of her red mouth.
"Was it you?"
The girl raised her eyes and gave the visitor one swift look, indignant, imploring; her impulse was to run from the room back to her own, but she could not; she walked quickly to the window and half turned from them instead.
"It was the strangest thing you ever saw," began the young man so hurriedly, his words tripped over one another. "I was just behind her. I saw her riding down the street. It was a curious sight—the farmers, the negroes with their tobacco for sale, you know. Just as she stopped"—another break he felt; she would think he had been watching her all the time—as he had from the moment he caught sight of her across the crowd at Roxie's wheel. "Just as she stopped, an old darkey rattled close by her; he was a sight!" the young fellow laughed nervously; "he had a quilt flopping all around him and as he passed the wind flapped it squarely in her horse's face and he was off, I after him. Pluckiest thing I ever saw, I thought she was gone down on those cobbles there." The professor made a little smothered exclamation. "She was half out of the saddle but she got back somehow, got control of the reins, too. But the horse was headed for the railway. I got up to her just in time."
Frances was facing him, gratitude in her eyes, not for the rescue but for the telling.
"Frances—Edward—" began the professor brokenly. He covered his face with his hand for a moment and then he went up close to the young man and spoke his gratitude in such warm words as brought a flush to his guest's face and to his daughter's.
"Frances, you have thanked him?"
Frances glanced at the young man shyly. He smiled back at her reassuringly.
"Of course!" he said quickly, and for the first time she felt a feeling of warm kindliness to him. She had been on the verge of quite the opposite feeling before.
It was some time after this that the professor, who had been quiet and thoughtful, and limited his conversation largely to table affairs, said suddenly, as if he had at last arrived at a conclusion of his thoughts, "Frances, this is the third accident you have had in less than a year."