“I really never could like any one except an American, Dan. I did not dream until I was in Europe how much I cared for my own country.”
Dan did not appear as pleased by this speech as might have been expected.
“There are more than a hundred million Americans, Sally, and I presume about ten million young men. Is it your idea that you care for them all alike because they are Americans?”
“Not alike,” Sally returned. “But about Mary Gilchrist?”
Dan flushed and looked as if he wished to make an angry retort. Then the sight of Sally sitting warm and safe and sweet before the open fire and the memory of the hours he had tramped the frozen earth hoping and yet dreading to discover her, softened him.
“About Mary Gilchrist you know there is nothing to say, Sally, know it fully as well as I. The other afternoon she needed some one to help with the toboggan. I was accustomed to the sport and fond of it and knew how to run things when the other fellows did not. To have remained with you, which I would prefer to have done, was to have affected everybody’s pleasure. If that is the reason why you started home alone, I think you were pretty hard on us all.”
To make a confession of a mistake was more difficult for Sally than for a more impetuous temperament, yet she answered with an air of unexpected penitence.
“I am sorry, Dan. I was angry and piqued and jealous perhaps. So I suppose I deserved what happened to me, yet it was not fair to make mother and father and Tante and the others and you, Dan, uneasy.”
“Uneasy, well that is scarcely the proper word, Sally. I have never been more wretched in my life. I knew if I did not find you and if all was not well with you I should never have another happy moment.”
Dan spoke simply but with such complete sincerity that Sally made a little movement and saw his hand reach out as if he wished to touch her soft hair. Then the door opened and Mrs. Burton, the Camp Fire guardian, with her sister, Mrs. Webster, came into the living-room.