"Well if you don't look like a mountaineer!" she said, as she met him in the dining-room, which was likewise the parlor of the place. "Where in the world have you been, all this time? You haven't come back without Glen?"
He had gone away ostensibly to find her brother.
"Well, the fact is he wasn't where I went, after all," he said. "I hastened home, after all that trip, undertaken for nothing, and found a letter from him here. I've come at once to have an important talk."
"A letter?" she cried. "Let me see it—let me read it, please. He's—where? He's well? He's successful?"
"Sit down," answered Bostwick, taking a chair and placing his hat on the table. "There's a good deal to say. But first, how have you been here, all alone?"
"Oh—very well—I suppose," she answered, restraining the natural resentment she felt at his patent neglect. "It isn't exactly the place I'd choose to remain in, alone all the time."
"Poor little girl, I've been thinking of that," he told her, reaching across the table to take her hands. "It's worried me, Beth, worried me greatly—your unprotected position, and all that."
"Oh, you needn't worry." She withdrew her hands. Someway it seemed a sacrilege for him to touch them—it was not to be borne—she hardly knew why, or since when. "I want to know about Glen," she added. "Never mind me."
"But I do mind," he assured her. His hand was trembling. "Beth, I—I can't talk much—I mean romantic talk, and all that, but—well—I've about concluded we ought to be married at once—for your sake—your protection—and my peace of mind. I have thought about it ever since I left you here alone."
The brightness expressive of the gayety of her nature departed from her eyes. She looked fixedly at the man's dark face, with its gray, deep-set, penetrative eyes, its bluish jaw, and knitted brows. It frightened her, someway, as it never had before. He had magnetized her always—sometimes more than now, but his influence crept upon her subtly even here.