Luke Manders did not speak to her, but he came and stood before her, towering over her like a young pine, and his black eyes were very bright. He took the hand that she gropingly held out to him and held it hard in his own hard hand, and it went through her mind that it was like taking hold of a stalwart tree for support—like leaning upon solid rock, like the strength of the hills. Looking up at him through tears she wondered, even in that hour, if her father had talked to him as he had to her, but she heard Miss Ada’s pattering return and pulled her hand away. She must be careful now with her two friends—her only friends—who were not friends with each other.
The young mountaineer was no longer openly rude to the faded gentlewoman: to the boldness and poise which he had brought down from the heights he had added a grave courtesy which sat well upon him, and he hooded the scorn in his keen eyes. Miss Ada, for her part, was obliged to admit and did admit, very pleasantly, to Glen, that the youth had made amazing progress, not only in his studies but in his adjustment to civilization. There was still, and Glen secretly hoped there would always be something alien, something distinct and different in dress, in carriage, in speech; it set him apart from the savorlessness of the herd. He had made astonishing speed at the business college course, and at the mill, where he had at once engaged the attention of Mr. ’Gene Carey, the genial senior partner, and was constantly being pushed forward.
It was true, as Miss Ada Tenafee had once allowed herself to remark, very casually, that he did not make friends; he had left the frowsy Tollivers, where the doctor had placed him, at the end of his first month, and found himself a tiny, clean room with strangers who were still strangers to him after three years, but this did not lessen him in Glen’s eyes. Her father did not make friends; she did not make friends herself; it was, in her bleak young creed, rather a pledge of fineness not to make friends.
A respectable number of his patients, the two doctors and the nurse, and three or four good-natured neighborhood people came to the brief, drab little funeral, and Glen sat between Miss Ada and Luke Manders. Just as they drove home from the cemetery Nancy Carey, in a soft blue dress, came down from The Hill with her hands filled with flowers.
“Oh, Glen, I’m so sorry!” she said, hurrying to meet her as she stepped from the machine. “I’ve just heard, half an hour ago (I’ve been in Augusta, you know) and of course it’s too late, but I just thought I’d bring you these!”
“Thank you,” said Glen hoarsely. The encounter unsteadied her—to come from her father’s grave, from his admonitions, and find the Greeks bearing gifts. Nancy Carey had always been gently, languidly pleasant to her, although they had met rarely since the little days at Miss Josephine’s. Nancy had been years away at Northern finishing schools and would soon, the Social Chat of the leading local paper announced excitedly, go abroad for an indefinite tour of the Continent. She had been a sweetly lovely child and she was a sweetly lovely girl, with tints of rose and cream in her softly modeled face and a liquid hazel gaze, and fine, pale brown hair, like a baby’s, curling loosely about her mild brow. There was a tender, a lyric quality about Nancy Carey ... old ballads ... hearts and initials carved on trees ... keepsakes ... lost causes ... early deaths.... She should have been Barbara Freitchie’s gentle best friend.
Miss Ada was fluttered at the call. “Honey, this is very good of you,” she blushed girlishly. “Glen appreciates your thoughtfulness. I know I may speak for her!” She laid an admonitory hand on her charge’s arm.
“It is ... very kind,” Glen managed obediently.
“And won’t you step in for a moment, Nancy, my dear? I’m just going to make Glen a cup of strong tea, and she’d be so pleased—we both would—” Miss Ada quite clearly thought that grief, at any rate, grief for a person of Dr. Darrow’s caliber, might well be laid aside for the amenities of life when a Carey came to call.
The girl from The Hill was regarding the young mountaineer with mild interest. “Oh, thanks, Cousin Ada,” she said, turning to her—Miss Ada was a connection by marriage in two or three directions—“but I just came to bring the roses and tell Glen how sorry— Auntie Lou-May is waiting for me.”