Lottie was a few years older than Rachel. In school she had been considered an out-and-out stupid, but once released from school she was acknowledged a belle. She was a large full-bosomed lass with a head of heavy blond hair. The one misfortune of her face was the slight crossing of the blue eyes. As far as possible, she remedied the defect by a frequent lowering of the lids, though the precaution was one which she did not trouble herself to take when walking, as at present, with one of her own kind. From this big lazy girl there issued a compelling and entirely innocent charm that attacked the opposite sex. To the absorbed and dreamy Rachel she was as cornet to flute, when both blow the same ravishing air.
For a space the pair followed the road in silence. Had any observer been present, he might well have asked himself how much of the hope depicted on the countenances of these two young creatures was destined to be fulfilled. Were they destined to be mothers of sons and daughters who, in turn, would inhabit this desolate coast?—or was it written that something of their superabundance of dream and romance be realized? It was significant that they set their faces toward the immense infinite ocean, suggestive that their skirts, whipped to the side by the breeze, seemed waving a farewell to the rude life of the land.
Though their shoulders touched, for sometime each seemed unconscious of the other. Lottie was the first to speak.
"Well," she cried, "here we are at Mr. Patch's and I haven't said a word of what's weighing on my mind."
Rachel started and glanced sideways at her. She feared some allusion to her meetings with Emil.
But Lottie was too much engrossed in her own affairs to give a thought to her companion's. "Yes, I think I must tell you," she continued with a sigh that was a frank announcement of vanity. "Well then, Mr. Forebush intends to fight Jim Wright. He's going to follow Jim as he goes along home past the cemetery, and when they reach a lonely place, he's going to drag Jim in behind the wall and settle things."
"The cemetery?" cried Rachel sharply. The cemetery was her territory.
"They won't be disturbed there—that's all Mr. Forebush is thinking of. He travels for a New York shoe firm, you know, and he says he's sick of finding Jim hanging round our house every time he comes to town."
"Then does Mr. Forebush—does he like you?" Rachel questioned. Though she made free use of a warmer term in her meditations, she hesitated to pronounce it.
But the more experienced Lottie had no such scruple. "Like me!" She threw her hands apart with an expansive motion. "Why he loves me!" And to cover her embarrassment she burst into laughter.