"I shall stay in this neighborhood some time longer," said Brent.
"So? What is the especial attraction? The young woman over there where the mountains stand?"
"Perhaps; but my own motives are about the last things I should attempt to analyze."
"Well, I expect to come back this way in three months, and, if I find you here and ready to depart, we can return to New York together."
"Like nearly all other imaginable things, what you state is not impossible."
Helfenstein went on his way the next morning, and Brent began his sojourn at the farm-house on the same day.
The burdens of Rena Reinfelter's life immediately became very much more numerous. The Englishman found an unfailing satisfaction in bewildering and horrifying her, and tried systematically to find out whether there was really any limit to her patience and gentleness. He induced her to go with him to the mountains near at hand, and took every opportunity to place himself in positions where he was in imminent danger of falling some hundreds of feet and being dashed to pieces on the rocks. Her dearly-beloved cat was suddenly lost to sight, and when it reappeared, uttering meek appeals for sympathy and help, its personal adornments were as striking as they were varied. He proved to her conclusively that all cats are utterly incapable of affection, and that their characters are vicious and treacherous to the last degree. His favorite method, however, was to begin by asking her some trivial question and then involve her in a net-work of apparent self-contradictions, which filled her conscientious soul with anguish and dismay at her own untruthfulness. Sometimes he felt a little ashamed of these amusements, and determined to forego them; but the temptation was too great for his powers of resistance, and he soon began transgressing again.
One morning Rena received a visit from her most intimate friend, Elsa Barndollar, who was only fifteen years old, but, having spent the preceding season at a city boarding-school, considered herself a grown woman with an unusually wide experience. Although passionately devoted to Rena, she was as fond of teasing her as Brent himself. Yet as soon as the latter began indulging himself with that diversion, she became highly indignant, and scornfully betook herself to the garden.
When Rena had followed her thither, she gave vent to her wrath without restraint.
"That's the most hateful man I ever saw!" she exclaimed.