“Neither do I,” said Gilbert, nonchalantly. “I never saw anything more unconscious. Come, let’s be going; there’s nothing to call her back, now.”
He put his hand under the fish basket, and weighed it mechanically, while he used the mass of his uncoupled rod staffwise, and moved away. Easton followed with a bewildered air, at which Gilbert, when he happened to glance round at him, broke into a laugh.
Chapter III
IN the evening Gilbert walked over to Woodward farm from the hotel where he and Easton had stopped that morning, and called on his sister-in-law. He had brought word from her husband in Boston, whom he had gone out of his course to see on his journey up from New York. When she found out that he had been in West Pekin all day, he owned that he had spent the time fishing. “I didn’t suppose you’d be in any hurry to hear of Bob’s detention; and really, you know, I came for the fishing.”
“You needn’t be so explicit, William,” said Mrs. Gilbert. “I’m not vain.”
“I was merely apologizing.”
“Were you? What luck did you have?”
“The brooks are fished to death. I’ve had bad enough luck to satisfy even Easton, who had a conscience against fishing, among other things.”
“Easton! Your Easton? Is Wayne Easton with you?” demanded Mrs. Gilbert, with impetuous interest. “You don’t mean it!”
“No, but I say it,” answered Gilbert, unperturbed.