“Lovingly,
“Fan.”
“P. S. I shall write Jack to-morrow.”
I read parts of this letter to Jack, skipping what I thought he ought not to hear. He looked very grave when I finished it, and said, “She is putting off her coming as long as she can. It is three weeks to the 25th. Does dress-making take so long?”
It took a good while, I told him, although Fan could not have a great deal to do. Then I spoke of Black Beauty, lamenting that he must be sold. We have had him so long that he seemed like one of us, with human instincts and affections.
“Isn’t there some other way of getting that tailor gown, if she must have it?” I said, looking up at Jack, whose face wore an expression different from any I had ever seen there.
I thought he consigned the tailor-made gown to perdition, but was not sure, he spoke so low. What I did understand was that Black Beauty would not be sold to Mrs. Arthur, and that I was to do nothing about it until I saw him again. Then he went away, seeming a good deal excited for Jack, and banged the door so hard behind him that Paul, who had been sitting very quietly in his high chair, asked “Is Jack mad?”
This reminded me of what Fanny had said of possible hip disease, and I remembered with a pang that Paul had not played horse on father’s cane quite as much, or run quite as fast since that fall on The Plateau. When I questioned him, however, he said he had no pain except once in a while when he was tired and then “something hurts me here,” and he put his hand low down on his back. I was not quite reassured, and determined to consult the village doctor the next time I saw him. Then I read Fan’s letter again, feeling as if an incubus had dropped from me because the Colonel was going abroad. Fan had never mentioned him before, but there had always been in my mind an undefinable feeling of uneasiness as if he were a dark shadow falling between her and Jack.
It was two days before I saw the latter again and when he came he was in a very different mood. He had received Fan’s letter of four pages crossed and so full of love and pretty sayings that if he could he would have bought her ten tailor-made gowns.
“I was a brute the last time I was here,” he said, “I was so disappointed that Fanny was not coming sooner. Old Mrs. Arthur can’t have Black Beauty, for I’ve bought him myself. I can’t part with him. I’ve had too many plans of riding through the woods and around the country with Fanny at my side. She never looks better than when on Beauty’s back. Here is the money.”