At this juncture, Beatrice went into the house and slammed the door emphatically.
"Our diet here seems to be somewhat restricted," continued Ronald, apparently unmindful of his decreasing audience,—"cow and sheep, sheep and cow, with an occasional piggy rift in the cloud. Birdie eats dog whenever he can get it, and look at him—he's got as much endurance as any five of us, and I'm not sure but what he's better put together than I am."
"Yes, he is," put in Katherine, with caustic emphasis; "and he's better company, also. Come in," she continued, to Mrs. Franklin.
Ronald gazed after the retreating figures in pained amazement. "Well, what do you think of that?" he asked mournfully. "You fellows probably don't notice it, because you're not sensitive to such things; but, to my mind, which is more finely organised, it's a delicate intimation that we're not wanted. Let's move along."
"'Delicate' is good," commented the Doctor, as they walked away. "I call it rather pointed, myself."
"Strange, isn't it," remarked Ronald, impersonally, "how some people fall into line with the expressed opinions of others!"
"Ronald," said the Doctor, with mock admiration, "I don't think I ever met a man with so much fine tact as you have. Your unerring choice of happy subjects stands by itself—alone and unapproachable."
"Run along to your medicines, you old pill-roller," retorted the Ensign; "I want to talk to my cousin Robert."
Norton laughed and turned away, but he felt his isolation keenly, none the less. Lieutenant Howard was barely civil to him, as was natural under the circumstances, and he dared not see much of Katherine. Captain Franklin was not particularly congenial, and Mrs. Franklin had a vague distrust of him. She knew nothing more about the affair than Katherine had told her in the winter, but she surmised a great deal. Ronald had been the Doctor's mainstay, but since Beatrice came to Fort Dearborn he had been conspicuous by his absence. Forsyth was busy a great deal of the time, and the Doctor was left to intermittent association with the Mackenzies and the dubious consolation of the barracks.
It was true, as he often told himself, that his nature was one of those foreordained to loneliness, but at times he hungered for the companionship of his kind. Books were few upon the frontier, and those few he knew by heart; so he scraped lint, made bandages, brewed medicines, cultivated a certain philosophical turn of mind, and wondered vaguely where and how it would end.