She scanned his face with an intentness that gave him the keenest pleasure, though he deceitfully pretended to be very much absorbed by a passing sleigh.
“Stargarde,” he said, when the sleigh had passed them, “you were criticising me just now, will you allow me to perform the same kind office for you?”
“Certainly,” with the utmost cheerfulness in tone and manner.
“You said that I am getting frivolous. In your character too, I see signs of weakening. There is rather an alarming symptom showing itself, of deference to the opinions of other people who are very much less clever than you, myself for example. You have always been so strong, Stargarde; have stood alone. Now you are becoming weak, deteriorating, getting to be like other women. I would check it, if I were you, this inclination toward the commonplace, the—the childish, if I may mention the word in your connection. Perhaps, though, the mental weakness follows upon a physical one. Aren’t you well and happy?”
She was very much discomposed. “Yes, Brian, I am well and happy; yet, I don’t know what it is lately, there seems to be a vague disquiet about me. Perhaps I have been doing more than I should.”
“That must be it,” soothingly. “You are working too hard. I will give you a tonic. Now let us walk down toward the harbor and talk about Zeb. You received my note?”
“Yes,” the expression of her face suddenly changing, “and I was so glad that I cried over it.”
“If your gladness had taken the form of coming to see her, I should have been better pleased,” he said complainingly.
“I decided that it was better to leave her wholly to you for a time.”
“Look at this,” he said, drawing a paper from his inside pocket. “Isn’t she going a pretty pace for a sometime ragamuffin?”