“Pat away,” said Captain Charles, laughing, and took it off with the sweep of a cavalier that was in itself a compliment. “You know yon place—Chicago?'' he asked, as she patted his headgear fondly and returned it to him. For a little her mind was far away from the deck of Lady Anne's yacht, her eyes on the ripple of the tide, her nostrils full, and her little bosom heaving.
“You were there?” he asked again.
“Chicago's where I lived,” she said. “That was mother's place,” and into his ear she poured a sudden flood of reminiscence—of her father and mother, and the travelling days and lodging-houses, and Mr. and Mrs. Molyneux, and the graves in the far-off cemetery. The very thought of them all made her again American in accent and in phrase. He listened, understanding, feeling the vexation of that far-sundering by the sea as only a sailor can, and clapped her on the shoulder, and looking at him she saw that in his eyes which made her love him more than ever. “Oh, my!” she said, bravely, “here I'm talking away to you about myself and I'm no more account than a rabbit under these present circumstances, Captain Charles, and all the time you're just pining to know all about your Kate.”
The Captain tugged his beard and reddened again. “A fine, fine gyurl!” said he. “I hope—I hope she's pretty well.”
“She's fine,” said Bud, nodding her head gravely. “You bet Kate can walk now without taking hold. Why, there's never anything wrong with her 'cepting now and then the croodles, and they're not anything lingering.”
“There was a kind of a rumor that she was at times a trifle delicate,” said Charles. “In fact, it was herself who told me, in her letters.”
Bud blushed. This was one of the few details of her correspondence on which she and Kate had differed. It had been her idea that an invalidish hint at intervals produced a nice and tender solicitude in the roving sailor, and she had, at times, credited the maid with some of Mrs. Molyneux's old complaints, a little modified and more romantic, though Kate herself maintained that illness in a woman under eighty was looked upon as anything but natural or interesting in Colonsay!
“It was nothing but—but love,” she said now, confronted with the consequence of her imaginative cunning. “You know what love is, Captain Charles! A powerfully weakening thing, though I don't think it would hurt anybody if they wouldn't take it so much to heart.”
“I'm glad to hear it's only—only what you mention,” said Charles, much relieved. “I thought it might be something inward, and that maybe she was working too hard at her education.”
“Oh, she's not taking her education so bad as all that,” Bud assured him. “She isn't wasting to a shadow sitting up nights with a wet towel on her head soaking in the poets and figuring sums. All she wanted was to be sort of middling smart, but nothing gaudy.”