"What I think is, that there is some reason—perhaps some point of honor with him—that keeps him away from her. He was Warry's friend. He was nearer Warry in his last years than any one. Don't you think that something of that sort may be the matter?"
The general was greatly amused, and he laughed so that Mrs. Whipple's own dignity was shaken.
"Amelia," he said, "your analytical powers are too sharp for this world. You're shaving it down pretty fine, it seems to me. I wish you'd tell me what you base that on."
"I'm not basing it; but it seems so natural that that should be the way."
The syphon gurgled harshly and sputtered, and the general put it down sadly.
"Now that you've solved the riddle in your own mind, how are you going to proceed? You'd better not try army tactics on a civilian job. Saxton isn't a second lieutenant, to be regulated by the commandant's wife."
"He's a dear!" declared Mrs. Whipple irrelevantly. "If Evelyn Porter wants him, she's going to have him."
"Oh, Lord!" The general took up his syphon to carry it back to the case in the pantry. "He's 'a dear,' is he? Amelia, John Saxton weighs at least one hundred and eighty pounds. I don't believe I'd call him 'a dear.' I'd reserve that for slim, elderly persons like me, or young girls just out of school." He stood swinging the syphon at arm's length. "Now, if my advice were worth anything, I'd tell you to let these young people alone. If you've guessed the true inwardness of this matter—as you probably haven't—they'll come out all right."
"Of course they'll come out all right," she answered, dreamily. The swinging door in the dining-room fanned upon her answer as the general strode through into the pantry.
For several weeks following Mrs. Whipple continued to think of Evelyn and her affairs. Evelyn was not an object of pity, and yet there was a certain pathos about her. Her position in the town as the daughter of its wealthiest citizen isolated her, it seemed to Mrs. Whipple. A girl would be less than human if the experiences to which Evelyn had been subjected did not make a profound impression upon her. Mrs. Whipple had seen a good deal of trouble in her day. She felt that Evelyn had learned too much of life in one lesson; if she could ease the future for her, she wished to do it. With such hopes as these she occupied herself as spring waxed old and summer held the land.