Moreton smiled, as one who gives up a sentiment rather reluctantly is apt to do, and said:
"Still I would rather not see it; she appeared out of place, somehow."
"She was quite out of place here; but she has become so used to overcoming such obstacles that she easily evaded any sense of the impropriety of invading the privacy of General DeKay's——
"No, I beg your pardon," hastily spoke up Moreton. "You do her wrong. She did feel very keenly that she was de trop, that she wasn't just free and welcome, don't you know. I saw it—she almost acknowledged it to me, in fact, and I felt downright sorry for her."
"Poor thing!" exclaimed Cordelia, her voice softening with the sudden change in her quick sympathy. "Poor girl! and we didn't try to help her or to make her feel easy. I hate myself for it. I see how mean I have been. It would have been so easy to have smoothed things for her, too!"
Moreton felt a temptation to seize this warm-hearted, impulsive girl and press her close to his breast. Indeed he had a right to be sorely tempted, for she was a strong, lithe, blooming maiden, whose steadfast honesty and purity glowed in her eyes and on her lips. Then there was the dreamy sunshine and the checkered shade and the softly rippling breeze to add to his mood, and yonder was the slumberous river lapsing away between its brakes. But he satisfied himself with simply looking at her and allowing her beauty to freshen and sweeten his heart.
"I suppose it is selfish and narrow," he presently said; "but I am heartily glad that all of them are gone—that we are left alone together, aren't you?"
She laughed, but she blushed as well, and looked away from him as she answered in what she meant for a very careless tone:
"Oh, I like company and bright talk and the excitement of numbers; it exhilarates me. This will be a dull old place, now that the party has dwindled down to four or five. I hope my father has almost run the gamut of his cartridges."
"Not a dull place," he said with a peculiar emphasis, "a dreamy, fascinating place, rather. The river yonder, see how it glimmers, and this breeze; I never was so happy at any place as I am here and now. There is a sort of mystery in the influence of things around us."