Mabel said that she thought it was, and blushed again as she said it.
Manton concluded from this that there must be something thicker than mere friendship between Dudley and his new acquaintance, and an awkward silence ensued.
"Yes," continued Manton presently, "Dudley was the warmest friend I had at college. I hadn't many," he added, in a tone that struck Mabel as being somewhat sad. "I hadn't time to make many friends, or even acquaintances. The work was rather harder for me than for most of the men, I think; but Dudley, from the very first, helped me when he could, and I think was the only cheering influence I met with during the entire course. He was always so full of life and so jolly, and at the same time sympathetic, and never depressed and in the blues, as I frequently was. I never could understand why he was so good a friend to me, unless perhaps because there may be a force of attraction between two extremes."
"Yes; I should not fancy you at all like him," Mabel said, trying to impress him with her intimate knowledge of Dudley's nature.
"No, not at all. In the first place, he has been so differently brought up: he has travelled, seen a great deal of the world, and profited by this experience, and I don't believe has ever had to take a thought of dollars and cents: thus he is naturally liberal both in his ideas and with his money. I am not,—not because I don't wish to be, but because I cannot be. Secondly, he is another animal physically,—an athlete born; while I have never engaged in any sport, know nothing of such matters, nor could I learn them. And then there is such a vast difference mentally between us: his mind is as quick and nimble as his muscles, while mine is much like a muddy stream, I'm afraid,—opaque and sluggish. Yes, I have often wondered over his friendship for me."
"I think you are detracting from your own virtues in order to flatter his," said Mabel, smiling, but rejoicing inwardly over the happy selection she had made in the college catalogue.
Manton protested that he had said no more than the truth, and continued to sound the praises of his friend until the hour for Mabel's luncheon arrived, when he departed for his solitary stroll upon the beach, delighted, though by no means as much so as Mabel was, at having found a friend of Dudley's.
After this it happened, if not by actual design, at any rate with suspicious frequency, that Manton took the short cut to the beach and that Mabel read her books and wrote her letters in the pine wood. One day when they met thus, and after their acquaintance had grown to be some three weeks old, Manton found the young lady (whom he had never regarded in any other light than that of Dudley's betrothed) very abstracted and apparently little inclined to lend the customary willing ear to his tales of their mutual friend. This troubled him sorely. That there had been some lovers' quarrel he could not doubt, and it pained him to think that any cloud should have arisen to darken the brightness of his friend's existence.
"Have you heard from Mort to-day?" he asked suddenly, in his blunt fashion.
After a moment's hesitation, Mabel acknowledged that she had, but further than that she vouchsafed him no information, and he soon concluded to continue his journey to the beach, his presence seeming only to add to Miss Moreley's nervousness and evident irritation.