Such were the spirit and reflections of this vain and pleasure-seeking egotist, in whom selfishness was the mainspring of life.
The Athols remained at the mountains only a few days longer, as they had promised to visit some friends living upon the Hudson, while Philip, now that his object had been accomplished, had consented to give up his trip to Maine, and rejoin his mother at Saratoga.
But before their separation Philip—to keep up the farce he was playing—had slipped upon Gertrude’s finger a costly diamond.
“I did not have it marked,” he explained, “because of our agreement to keep our own counsel, but that can easily be done later,” and she, having the utmost confidence in him, was content.
Before her departure Gertrude sought an opportunity to have a little talk with Clifford. She found him, on the morning of the day she was going to leave, on the upper veranda of the hotel, where he was repairing a broken blind.
“You are always busy, Mr. Faxon,” she observed, with a cordial smile, as she seated herself in a rocker near him.
“Yes, Miss Athol,” the young man respectfully replied, as he removed his hat and tossed it upon the floor; “to be busy is a condition inevitable to my position, you know.”
This was said without the slightest evidence of self-consciousness, or of false pride because of the necessity which obliged him to occupy a humble position.
Gertrude watched him in silence for several minutes, admiring his fine, stalwart figure, his easy bearing, and feeling an additional respect for him because he did not pause in his work on account of her presence, and the fact that she had opened a conversation with him.
“I believe you love to work—you always appear to be absorbed in whatever you are doing,” she remarked, at length.