“Other goblins, I should think.”
The talk of ghosts seemed ominous and Leighton changed the subject. She seemed to him more baffling than ever—a part of the night’s mystery.
“I had a brief note from Mr. Merriam to-day. He seems to be taking his Saratoga rather sadly.”
“Aunt Julia hasn’t written me at all. She feels that I’ve basely deserted her. Uncle Rodney writes to me every day or two to tell me how charming it is, and how many perfectly lovely young women he meets. He does that to increase my sorrow in staying at home.”
“We’ll have to confront him with our respective letters, your cheerful one and mine in a doleful key, when he comes back.”
“Dear Uncle Rodney! He can be just as disagreeable to me as he pleases. I believe I’d rather have him scold me than have the praise of most people,” said Zelda.
Olive had not warned her of Morris’s coming, but her cousin’s plea of letter-writing as an excuse for going indoors was not wholly sincere, as Zelda knew. But there was no escaping this talk with Morris Leighton on the veranda, and she began with sudden energy to speak rapidly of many irrelevant and frivolous things. It was not an easy matter to meet thus a man who a fortnight before had declared himself her lover. She did not try to-night her old manner of chaffing him almost to the point of impudence; she had no heart for that now. And she felt moreover his manliness and strength; there was an appeal in her heart that almost cried to him. She talked of the past winter; of the Dramatic Club; of the drolleries of Herr Schmidt, and of the people who had fled the town for the summer, and all with a gaiety that did not ring true.
Her father came out presently, evidently absorbed in thought, and went down the walk without speaking to them. They heard the beat of his stick beyond the gate as he followed the country road that lay between his corn-fields. The sight of him was proving an increasing trial to her, for she felt day by day the burden of the task she had assumed in living with him. The contact with him grew more irksome. His ways grew increasingly strange. He was pressing all his debtors, and some of them came to the house to beg for time. She overheard several of these interviews in which her father had been unyielding in his cloyingly sweet way. If he had been an open criminal, it would have been easier to bear. If only her mother had not left that last injunction! But that poor pitiful prayer was never out of her thoughts:
“Perhaps I was unjust to him; it may have been my fault; but if she can respect or love him I wish it to be so.”
She was not aware of the interval of silence that lay like a gulf between her and Morris, so intent was she upon her own thoughts. Then he began as though continuing the discussion of a subject just dropped.