That afternoon Westover saw Jeff helping Cynthia Whitwell into his buckboard, and then, after his lively horse had made some paces of a start, spring to the seat beside her, and bring it to a stand. "Can I do anything for you over at Lovewell, Mr. Westover?" he called, and he smiled toward the painter. Then he lightened the reins on the mare's back; she squared herself for a start in earnest, and flashed down the sloping hotel road to the highway below, and was lost to sight in the clump of woods to the southward.
"That's a good friend of yours, Cynthy," he said, leaning toward the girl with a simple comfort in her proximity. She was dressed in a pale-pink color, with a hat of yet paler pink; without having a great deal of fashion, she had a good deal of style. She looked bright and fresh;there was a dash of pink in her cheeks, which suggested the color of the sweetbrier, its purity and sweetness, and if there was something in Cynthia's character and temperament that suggested its thorns too, one still could not deny that she was like that flower. She liked to shop, and she liked to ride after a good horse, as the neighbors would have said; she was going over to Lovewell to buy a number of things, and Jeff Durgin was driving her there with the swift mare that was his peculiar property. She smiled upon him without the usual reservations she contrived to express in her smiles.
"Well, I don't know anybody I'd rather have for my friend than Mr. Westover." She added: "He acted like a friend the very first time I saw him."Jeff laughed with shameless pleasure in the reminiscence her words suggested. "Well, I did get my come-uppings that time. And I don't know but he's been a pretty good friend to me, too. I'm not sure he likes me;but Mr. Westover is a man that could be your friend if he didn't like you.""What have you done to make him like you?" asked the girl.
"Nothing!" said Jeff, with a shout of laughter in his conviction.
"I've done a lot of things to make him despise me from the start. But if you like a person yourself, you want him to like you whether you deserve it or not.""I don't know as I do."
"You say that because you always deserve it. You can't tell how it is with a fellow like me. I should want you to like me, Cynthy, whatever you thought of me." He looked round into her face, but she turned it away.
They had struck the level, long for the hill country, at the foot of the hotel road, and the mare, that found herself neither mounting nor descending a steep, dropped from the trot proper for an acclivity into a rapid walk.
"This mare can walk like a Kentucky horse," said Jeff. "I believe Icould teach her single-foot." He added, with a laugh, "If I knew how,"and now Cynthia laughed with him.
"I was just going to say that."
"Yes, you don't lose many chances to give me a dig, do you?""Oh, I don't know as I look for them. Perhaps I don't need to." The pine woods were deep on either side. They whispered in the thin, sweet wind, and gave out their odor in the high, westering sun. They covered with their shadows the road that ran velvety between them.
"This is nice," said Jeff, letting himself rest against the back of the seat. He stretched his left arm along the top, and presently it dropped and folded itself about the waist of the girl.
"You may take your arm away, Jeff," she said, quietly.
"Why?"
"Because it has no right there, for one thing!" She drew herself a little aside and looked round at him. "You wouldn't put it round a town girl if you were riding with her.""I shouldn't be riding with her: Girls don't go buggy-riding in town any more," said Jeff, brutally.
"Then I shall know what to do the next time you ask me.""Oh, they'd go quick enough if I asked them up here in the country.
Etiquette don't count with them when they're on a vacation.""I'm not on a vacation; so it counts with me. Please take your arm away," said Cynthia.
"Oh, all right. But I shouldn't object to your putting your arm around me.""You will never have the chance."
"Why are you so hard on me, Cynthy ?" asked Jeff. "You didn't used to be so.""People change."
"Do I?"
"Not for the better."
Jeff was dumb. She was pleased with her hit, and laughed. But her laugh did not encourage him to put his arm round her again. He let the mare walk on, and left her to resume the conversation at whatever point she would.
She made no haste to resume it. At last she said, with sufficient apparent remoteness from the subject they had dropped: "Jeff, I don't know whether you want me to talk about it. But I guess I ought to, even if it isn't my place exactly. I don't think Jackson's very well, this summer."Jeff faced round toward her. "What makes you think he isn't well?""He's weaker. Haven't you noticed it?"
"Yes, I have noticed that. He's worked down; that's all.""No, that isn't all. But if you don't think so--""I want to know what you think, Cynthy," said Jeff, with the amorous resentment all gone from his voice. "Sometimes folks outside notice the signs more--I don't mean that you're an outsider, as far as we're concerned--"She put by that point. "Father's noticed it, too; and he's with Jackson a good deal.""I'll look after it. If he isn't so well, he's got to have a doctor.
That medium's stuff can't do him any good. Don't you think he ought to have a doctor?""Oh yes."
"You don't think a doctor can do him much good?""He ought to have one," said the girl, noncommittally.
