The tenderness still lingered in her eyes when she turned to him again.
"Is Jim hard up?" she inquired.
The frigidity of her tone was wholly at variance with her expression. But it told plainly of her feelings for the subject of her inquiry. Dave shook his head.
"From all I've heard, and from his own talk, I'd guess not."
Betty suddenly became very angry. She wanted to shake somebody, even Dave, since he was the only person near enough to be shaken.
"He says in his letter, 'as the mill is no further use to me,'" she cried indignantly. "Dave, your Christian spirit carries you beyond all bounds. You have no right to give all that money for it. It isn't worth it anyway. You are—and he—he—oh, I've simply no words for him!"
"But your uncle, with due regard for his cloth, has," Dave put in quickly.
Betty's indignation was gone in an instant, lost in the laugh which responded to his dry tone.
He had no intention of making her laugh, but he was glad she did so. It told him so much. It reassured him of something on which he had needed reassurance. Her parting with Jim, giving up as it did the habit and belief of years, had troubled him. Then in some measure he had felt himself responsible, although he knew perfectly well that no word of his had ever encouraged her on the course she had elected. He was convinced now. Her regard for Jim was utterly dead, had been dead far longer than probably even she realized.
With this conviction a sudden wild hope leapt within him; but, like summer lightning, its very brilliancy left the night seemingly darker. No, it could never be now. Betty liked him, liked him only too well. Her frank friendliness was too outspoken, and then—ah, yes, he knew himself. Did he ever get the chance of forgetting? Did not his mirror remind him every morning? Did not his hair brushes, even, force it upon him as they loyally struggled to arrange some order in his obstinate wiry hair? Did not every chair, even his very bed, cry out at the awful burden they were called upon to support? Somehow his thoughts made him rebellious. Why should he be so barred? Why should he be denied the happiness all men are created for? But in a man like Dave such rebellion was not likely to find vent in words, or even mood.