“Oh no,” said Miss Letty, brightly, for with her usual sweetness she never thought of her own “wasted young affections” at all, but only of the disappointments of her friends, and she knew that Fitz had suffered. “I feel with Captain Crosby, that some things are very hard for us to understand. But I think myself that just as no drop of dew or grain of dust is wasted, so no kind action or true love is wasted either. It may seem so,—but it is not. And let us hope poor Boy will be all right. But he certainly ought to be sent to school. I think”—here she paused and looked up smiling—“I think I shall have another try.”
The Major paused in his game, while his friend Fitz glowered sullenly at the balls.
“You will, Letty? You mean you will try to give the little chap another chance of proper education?”
“Yes, I think so,” said Miss Letty, bending over her knitting, while her needles clicked cheerily in her small, pretty hands. “I will write very earnestly to both Captain and Mrs. D’Arcy-Muir, and make a perfectly plain, practical, business proposal to them. If they refuse it, well, I shall have relieved my feelings by asking.”
A sudden radiance seemed to illuminate the billiard-table, but it was only Fitz smiling across it.
“Just like you, Miss Letty,” he said. “Whenever there is something good to be done you are the one to do it!”
Miss Letty shook her head deprecatingly and went on with her knitting for a while,—then presently she retired to bed after sending in whiskies and sodas to the two gentlemen to refresh themselves while finishing their game. Fitz had turned crusty again, apparently. Jerking his head backward towards the door through which Miss Letty had disappeared after saying her gentle good-night, he demanded,
“Why didn’t you marry her?”
“Because she wouldn’t have me,” replied the Major promptly.
“Why wouldn’t she have you?”