"You've a cinder mark on your nose."
"Thanks." He gave her his handkerchief and she wiped away the smear.
"How long can you stay?—Oh, don't answer! Please forget I asked you. When you've got to go just tell me a few minutes before your departure…. The main thing in life is to shorten unhappiness as much as possible. That is Rita's philosophy."
"Is Rita well?"
"Perfectly—thanks to your bonbons. She doesn't precisely banquet on the fare here—poor dear! But then," she added, philosophically, "what can a girl expect on eight dollars a week? Besides, Rita has been spoiled. I am not unaccustomed to fasting when what is offered does not interest me."
"You mean that boarding house of yours in town?"
"Yes. Also, when mother and I kept house with an oil stove and two rooms the odour of medicine and my own cooking left me rather indifferent to the pleasures of Lucullus."
"You poor child!"
"Not at all to be pitied—as long as I had mother," she said, with a quiet gravity that silenced him.
Up, up, and still up they climbed, the fat horse walking leisurely, nipping at blackberry leaves here, snatching at tender maple twigs there. The winged mountain beauties—Diana's butterflies—bearing on their velvety, blue-black pinions the silver bow of the goddess, flitted ahead of the horse—celestial pilots to the tree-clad heights beyond.