“Are you quite sure of that, Corbin?” asked Mr. Romaine, with a foxy smile. “Sometimes a cow does not like to be chased by a haystack.”
Sir Archy, still busy with his traps, did not take this in. Ethel Maywood did not contradict it at all. She never took issue with Mr. Romaine, but Letty flushed angrily. She concluded then that Mr. Romaine was very old and very disagreeable.
Farebrother was still lingering, although the first whistle had already blown. It was about nine o’clock on a lovely September evening. The moon had risen, and a pale, opaline glow still lingered on sea and sky, bathing the harbor and the white walled fort and a fleet of yachts in its magic light. The scene and the hour melted Letty. She had been very happy at Newport. Usually, the first taste a provincial gets of the great world beyond is bitter in the mouth, but her experiences had been rather happy, and of all the men she met, Farebrother, whose father had made his money in wines and liquors, and who had conscientious scruples against making money, had impressed her the most. With the easy confidence born of youthful vanity, and the simplicity of a provincial girl, Letty fancied that Farebrother would turn up at Corbin Hall within a month, unable to keep away from her longer. But at the actual moment of saying good-by, some lines she had once heard came back to her—“A chord is snapped asunder at every parting”—some faint doubt, whether, after all, he cared enough about her to seek her out, crossed her mind. Farebrother caught her eyes fixed on him with a new light in them. He had begun then to make his good-bys. Ethel Maywood only felt that general regret at parting with him that she always felt at seeing the last of an eligible man—but the presence of Mr. Romaine and Sir Archy Corbin was more than enough to console her. All the others, though, were genuinely sorry—he was so bright, so full of good fellowship, such a capital fellow all around.
The Colonel wrung his hand for five minutes. He gave Farebrother seven separate invitations to visit them at Corbin Hall, each more pressing than the last; he sent his regards to everything at the Farebrother cottage, including the butler. “A very worthy man, although in an humble station in life, and particularly attentive to me whenever I availed myself of your noble hospitality, so that I did not feel the want of my own serving man, David, who is equally worthy, although a great fool.”
Miss Jemima pressed Farebrother’s hand warmly, and promised to send him a gallon of a particular kind of peach cordial which she knew was very superior to the trashy imported cordial he had been reduced to drinking.
Letty said nothing, but when Farebrother came to say good-by to her, she made a deft movement that took them off a little to themselves, where a word might be said in private without the others hearing it.
“Good-by,” she said, in a voice with a real thrill in it, such as Farebrother had never heard before.
He had heard her in earnest about books, politics, religion, and numerous other subjects, but seriousness in her tone with men, and especially with men who admired her, was something new. He held her slim gloved hand in his, and he felt the light pressure of her fingers as she said quickly, in a low voice:
“I sha’n’t forget your goodness to me. I hope we shall meet again.”
“I hope so too,” answered Farebrother, laughing.