George could not help recalling the eager joy with which Rosie used to greet each new expedition. Why wasn't Ellen the same, he wondered in helpless perplexity. He went through all the little attentions which Rosie had taught him and a thousand more, and Ellen received them with a quiet, "Thanks," or a half-hearted, "You're awful kind, George."
"Kind nuthin'!" he shouted once. "I don't believe you care one straw for me or for anything I do for you!"
His outburst startled her and, for a moment, she faltered. Then she said: "I don't see how you can say that, George. I think you're just as good and kind as you can be."
"Good and kind!" he spluttered. "What do I care about being good and kind? What I want is love!"
"Well, don't I love you?" She looked at him beseechingly and put her hand on his shoulder. Her caresses were infrequent and this one, slight as it was, was enough to fire his blood and muddle his understanding.
"You do love me, don't you?" he begged, pulling her to him, and she, as usual, submitting without a protest, said, yes, she did.
A word, a touch, and Ellen could always silence any misgiving. But such misgivings had a way of returning, once George was alone. Then he would wish that he had Rosie to talk things over with. He was used to talking things over with Rosie. For some reason, though, he never saw Rosie now except for a moment when she handed him his supper-pail each evening at the cars. At other times she seemed always to be out on errands or on jaunts with Janet and Tom Sullivan. George looked upon Tom as a jolly decent youngster and he was pleased that the intimacy between him and Rosie was growing. But at the same time he could not help feeling a little hurt that Rosie should so completely forget him. True, he was bound up heart and soul in Ellen and now he was her accepted lover. That, it seemed to him, ought to be happiness enough and he told himself that it was enough. Then he would sigh and wonder why he wasn't as light-heartedly gay as he used to be when he and Rosie went about together. Rosie, apparently, had entirely forgotten what good chums they once had been. Well, after all, he couldn't blame her, for she was only a child.
George did not know and probably never would know that Rosie was watching him and watching over him with all the faithfulness of a little dog and that she knew all there was to know of the situation between him and Ellen.
George had set the latter part of September as the time for his return to the country. For four long years he had been working and saving for this very event. Several times before he had been about to leave but always, at the last moment, some untoward circumstance had crippled his finances and he had been forced to stay on in the city another few months. Now for the first time he could go and now he was loath to go. But he had made his announcement and all his little world was standing about, waiting to see him off and to bid him god-speed.
He was ashamed to acknowledge even to himself the indecision that was tugging at his heart. "Don't you think, Ellen," he ventured at last, "it might be just as well if I waited till Christmas?"