“Oh!” murmured Zelda, in a note that carried contrition so deep that Leighton laughed.
“I didn’t mean what you thought I did. We were in college together; and there’s a tradition that college friendships are lasting ones. The fact is that Jack and I don’t see much of each other.”
As they reached the road, which lay white in the moonlight, Ezra Dameron came toward them, walking slowly, hat in hand, and the two watched him—his queer shuffling walk, his head bent, his gray hair touched with the silver of the moonlight.
“Won’t you come with us, father?” said Zelda, as they met in the road.
“No; no, thank you, Zee. I have had my little constitutional. Don’t go too far,—there may be malaria abroad.”
Leighton looked furtively at Zelda. She had greeted her father kindly, happily; but there was something repellent in Ezra Dameron. Leighton never felt it more than to-night. That such a girl should have a father so wretched seemed impossible; but the thought quickened his love for her. There was something fine in her conduct toward her father; her unfailing gentleness and patience with him had impressed Leighton from the time of her home-coming. She made a point of speaking of him often and always with respect. Leighton was well aware that no one else, with the single exception of Michael Carr, ever spoke of Ezra Dameron in anything but derision. Rodney Merriam never mentioned him at all, which was doubtless the safer way.
Farther along the road Pollock and Olive were tentatively singing a popular song of the hour.
“Sing it all,—don’t pick at it that way,” called Zelda.
“Sing it yourself, if you don’t like it,” came back the answer from Olive.
“There is only one song that I should care to hear to-night,” said Leighton, after a moment of silence.