I thought this no ill sign of coming friendship, and indeed it was not an hour before I received a first confidence on the subject from Alida.
"She is all you say and more. She makes me so ashamed of myself!"
"So she does me!" I answered, thinking of my dealings with Jeanne and our walk home from the restaurant of Mère Félix.
Alida held out her hand quickly.
"Does she make you feel that too?—I am glad," she said, and smiled gratefully like a child consoled.
Then came Rhoda Polly's mother, and my father, who had been talking to Rhoda Polly by the sundial, rose and with a word and smile excused himself and went indoors. The interview that followed I should have loved well to watch and hear. But after all I doubt if any great part of the gentle influences which rained from Mrs. Deventer could have been written down. No stenographer could take note of those captivating intonations, the soft subtle pauses of speech, the lingering tender understanding in her motherly eyes, the way she had of laying her hand upon Alida's.
She had been a counsellor to many, and had never forgotten a sore heart even when healed, nor told a tale out of that gracious confessional.
Certain it is that the conquest of Alida was soon made, in so far as Mrs. Deventer could make it. They saw each other every day, and the sight of Rhoda Polly and Alida striking across the big bridge with the wind right in their faces—or of Alida, with Linn, like a gaunt watch-dog, thrusting a combative shoulder into the mistral to fend a way for her charge—became familiar on the windy sidewalks of the great suspension bridge.
All went as we could have wished it, till one day I took the Bey across to go over the works. Dennis Deventer was to afford enough time to conduct us in person. It was no small honour, for visitors were generally either refused altogether, or handed over to Jack Jaikes with instructions that they should see as little as possible.
I was wholly at ease about the meeting of the Bey and Dennis Deventer. Two such fighters, I thought, could not but be delighted with one another.