"Ah, Miss Helen! Good evening," he said.
"Is it you, Mr. Brandt?" asked Helen. "Of course you know Mr. Zane."
Brandt acknowledged Jonathan's bow with an awkwardness which had certainly been absent in his greeting to Helen. He started slightly when she spoke the borderman's name.
A brief pause ensued.
"Good night," said Jonathan, and left them.
He had noticed Brandt's gesture of surprise, slight though it was, and was thinking about it as he walked away. Brandt may have been astonished at finding a borderman talking to a girl, and certainly, as far as Jonathan was concerned, the incident was without precedent. But, on the other hand, Brandt may have had another reason, and Jonathan tried to study out what it might be.
He gave but little thought to Helen. That she might like him exceedingly well, did not come into his mind. He remembered his sister Betty's gossip regarding Helen and her admirers, and particularly Roger Brandt; but felt no great concern; he had no curiosity to know more of her. He admired Helen because she was beautiful, yet the feeling was much the same he might have experienced for a graceful deer, a full-foliaged tree, or a dark mossy-stoned bend in a murmuring brook. The girl's face and figure, perfect and alluring as they were, had not awakened him from his indifference.
On arriving at his brother's home, he found the colonel and Betty sitting on the porch.
"Eb, who is this Brandt?" he asked.
"Roger Brandt? He's a French-Canadian; came here from Detroit a year ago. Why do you ask?"