“Well, stay with them this time, you little wandering Jew,” Vic admonished, nor dreamed how his guardian angel had come to him this day in the guise of this same little wanderer.
When Victor and Elinor had come at last to the west bluff above the Walnut River, the late afternoon was already casting long shadows across the grassy level of the old Kickapoo Corral. And again the camp fires were glowing where a Sorority “spread” was merrily in the making.
They must go down soon and join in the hilarity. But a golden half hour yet hung in the west—and the going down meant the going back to all that had been.
“Look at the foam on the whirlpool, Elinor. See how deliberately it swings upstream. Isn't that a most deceiving bit of treachery?” Vic said as he watched the river.
Elinor looked thoughtfully at the slow-moving water.
“I cannot endure deceit,” she said at last. “I like honesty in everything. I said I would tell you sometime about a sacrifice I was forced to make. I'll tell you now if you will not speak of what I say.”
How delicious to have her confidence in anything. Vic smiled assent.
“My father had a fortune from my mother. When he died he left me to the care of my two uncles, and gave all his money to endow chairs in universities. He thought a woman could marry money, and that he was doing mankind a service in this endowment. Maybe he was, but I've always rebelled against being dependent. I've always wanted my own. Uncle Joshua thinks I am frivolous, and he has told Uncle Lloyd that it's just my love of spending and extravagant notions that makes me rebel against conditions. It is n't. It's the sense of being robbed, as it were. It was n't right and honest toward me, even in a great cause, to leave me dependent. Uncle Lloyd would never have done it. I hope he does n't think I'm as bad as Uncle Joshua does. You won't mind my telling you this, nor think me ungrateful to my relatives for their care of me. Nobody quite understands me but you.”
The time had come for them to join the jolly picnic crowd in the Corral. She would go back to Vincent Burgess in a little while, and this glorious day would be only a memory. And yet, down in the pretty glen, Victor had held her hands and kissed her red lips. And she had been glad down there. The void in his life seemed blacker than the blackness behind the cavern.
“Elinor,” he asked, suddenly, “are you bound by any promise—has Professor Burgess—?” He hesitated.