after the westchester afternoon there were two dinners with flood as host; and do what she would, she could not altogether escape his daily, almost hourly attentions, without wounding his feelings and her own. he did nothing she might not accept without in the least seeming to bind herself by any obligation; the very intensity of his love urged him to caution. but when he suggested to cecilia that, since her sister had decided to go down by train, he should perhaps be going as far as washington on the same day, he would have divined cecilia better if he had not been so absorbed in his dreams of rosamund; for mrs. maxwell's ambitions had enlarged since early summer, and she did not hesitate to divulge his plan. rosamund was to have taken the congressional; instead, she slipped away at nine o'clock; so anxious was she to put distance between herself and flood, that she would not even wait for eleanor.
on the way down, she wondered at something in cecilia's expression when she had made known her intention of running away from flood's companionship, but there was too much else in her mind to permit of her spending much thought upon those she had just left; there was a warmth in her heart as of the traveler's returning to the land of his affection. she had called new york her home for most of her life, and lived in the mountains three months; yet behind her she left little that she loved, and before her lay smiling fields of imagination; and she found the vision sweet. she planned the placing of the furniture in the little house, made out a list of the things that should go in each room, and wondered what she had forgotten. she was carrying little presents back with her, and she took them out of her bag, opened their boxes to make sure they were quite right, put them back into their wrappings, and with the pencil on her chatelaine wrote messages on each. only for ogilvie she had no gift; she had spent more time in hunting something for him than in choosing her dining-room furniture, and had come away with—nothing! there was really nothing in all new york that she could take back to the doctor!
when he met her at the little station in the october darkness of early evening, she looked about for yetta and tim.
"i thought you would bring the children to welcome me!" she exclaimed, and was glad that she had it to say.
but the doctor, who was walking beside her with her small hand bag, only said, quietly, "no, you didn't!" and rosamund's cheeks burned as he helped her to her place behind white rosy.
he asked her about her days in the city, but she had little to say of them; what interested her now was the new home she was going to make. as they approached it she peered through the darkness at the little brown cottage, and they stopped for a moment to make sure that mother cary's light could be seen from there. she told him that mrs. reeves was going to be with her, and that she had arranged with the charities to keep timmy for a while longer; of the possible adoption she said nothing, having bound eleanor also to silence, ignoring the question in his eyes. when she spoke of her hope of having grace live with them, the doctor's face became grave.
"it would be the best thing in the world for grace, in one way, and perhaps for you; but—i am not thinking of anything specific—but joe tobet, if angered, might be a dangerous enemy. if he should resent grace's defection, and blame it on you——"
rosamund laughed. "oh, but i am not in the least afraid of any joe tobets, you know!" she said. "what on earth could he do to me?"
"i suppose you mean what could a man of his class do to injure a woman of yours?"
her face flushed a little. "well, what if i do?"
"i think you'd find that he is unaware of class distinctions. he certainly would not regard them. he might be vindictive; he might make all sorts of trouble for you, and is sure to for grace."
"oh, but that's just the point! i want to protect her from him!"
"it is not your place to!" but then he turned towards her, and she knew he smiled through the darkness. "play lady bountiful, if you will, but do take my advice and let poor grace work out her own salvation."
she had no answering smile. "oh," she said, "i thought you were above such phrases."
"well, i thought so, too; but i'm not above anything when it's a question of danger to—you."
the slight deepening of his tone was enough to make her hold her breath; but she would not let emotion affect her desire to make her intention clear to him.
"i do not believe there is any danger," she said, "but if there is i think i cannot regard it. i—i am not sure i can make you understand—but i want to! it is not just an idle whim that makes me stay here this winter; it is not because i am tired of other things, things i've always had. i have been restless, i confess, but it is not restlessness that has made me decide to stay here. i have no theories of life. i'm afraid i've rather scorned the people who have; but somehow i know that i have something to do here. i cherish the belief that i have. i have never had any special thing to do, before, you see! so even if i knew that there was danger in my living in that little brown house, and having poor grace with me, i should ignore the danger, because—well, because there is something for me to do here, and i am going to try to do it."
they were down in the valley by this time, mother cary's lamp twinkling far above them; there was light enough from the starlit sky for her to see that he had taken off his old cap, worn out of deference to her arrival, and that he ran his fingers backward through his hair, as always when he was troubled. he did not reply until they turned into the shadow of the wooded road and rosy was climbing the last half mile of their drive.
"god knows, there's work a-plenty for every comer," he said. "it is not for me to tell you to keep out of it. but i hadn't thought of it in that way—for you."
"perhaps i ought to tell you," she said, "that i can help in another way. i have heard mother cary talk about the people farther back in the mountains—the people you see, but that only come out, she says, when the 'summer folks' are gone. grace has told me about them, too. i—i have some money at my disposal—i know where i can get a good deal. i thought perhaps you might—and grace—use it in some way—you would know how, wouldn't you?"
the thought of her deception, if such it was, made her hesitate in her speech; but her disappointment was quick and keen that he did not at once accept her suggestion. when at last he spoke, his voice sounded tired, and she did not understand his answer until she had pondered it that night in her own room at mother cary's.
"i am afraid," he said, "that even with what you think is a good deal, we should need another miracle of the loaves and fishes."
