How utterly ungracious and unattractive her speech sounded! Nevertheless she greatly wished Mr. Clark and his sister to remember her with pleasure, when they were so soon to be separated and probably would not meet again.
But Robert Clark did not appear to be either angry or hurt.
Instead, he continued looking at the young woman beside him with a kind of grave tenderness.
“Has it never occurred to you, Ellen, that I may need and want you for other reasons; that I may wish to care for you more than I wish you to care for me? But I have no right to speak of this to you now—not until I am absolutely well.”
He held out his thin, somewhat scholarly hand and Ellen Deal put her own capable, executive one into it. She did not understand all her companion’s speech implied, and yet she had a flooding sense of happiness.
“A happy day to you; I must go now and wish Mrs. Burton good luck. You are wonderfully kind to have included Marta in your excursion into the canyon. And I have enjoyed my ride with you this far. Good-bye.”
The Camp Fire party had this morning driven along a wonderful roadway which is built beside the brink of the canyon for a number of miles. They had finished an early luncheon at an odd road house imitating the Spanish style and furnished with Spanish furniture.
At the present moment Mrs. Burton was standing on the great porch of this hotel talking to several of the Grand Canyon guides and entirely surrounded by members of her Camp Fire party. The others were not far away, but outside in the hotel grounds.
Billy Webster was standing alongside his aunt looking perfectly well and cheerful. Two weeks had passed since his arrest, but three days only had been required for securing his release.
Mrs. Burton had, of course, immediately obtained the interest and the services of several influential men, who promised to get her nephew out of his difficulty as quickly as possible.