"I'm awful glad. I says to ma this morning, 'I do hope,' says I, 'Mr. Flint has taken Pa's big white umbrella lined with green. You know his head is so weak.'"
Flint felt Brady's amused glance upon him. "Thank you," he answered stiffly, "my head is quite well again. Come, Brady," he added, turning to his friend, "if you are ready, we'll get our stroll before we turn in."
"Here, Tilly," said Marsden, at the same time, "here's the yeast-cake; but I don't see what ma wants with it, fur I gev her two this arfternoon."
Tilly blushed, and looked furtively toward the doorway where the young men stood. The girl had a kind of flimsy prettiness which suggested a cotillon favor. Her hair was fluffy, and coquettishly knotted at the back with blue ribbon. Her freshly ironed white dress set off her hourglass figure, and the fingers on which she was continually twisting the rings were white and slender. Her lips were set in a somewhat simpering smile, and her voice was soft with a view to effect. Brady watched her artless artfulness with some amusement. When they had gone [Pg 79] out, he hinted something to Flint in regard to the conquest he appeared to have made; but found him so loftily unconscious that his jest fell flat, and he dropped the subject to take up a more serious theme as they strolled along the road, and at length seated themselves where the turkeys had made their roost, on the gray rail-fence in the moonlight.
"I wonder, Flint," said Brady, "if we shall be able to take up our old association where we dropped it."
"Of course not," Flint answered, "don't imagine it for a moment!"
"I don't see why we should not."
"You don't?"
"No, I do not."
"Well, that fact alone is enough to show the gap between us. I can see it plainly enough. You have spent these last ten years in active, quick decisions, accumulating energy, push, drive—what you call hustling; while I have been trying to see into things a little, trying to find out what is worth hustling for—whether anything is. Now do you suppose that two people with such opposite training are going to fit together like a cup and ball, as they used to do when they were chums in college, and had had no training at all?"