"What was in your mind? What did you think? What did you--suspect me of? For I see in that honest, telltale face of yours that it was a suspicion.""I didn't blame you," protested the girl, "even if it was so.Ithought maybe you got to thinking it over--and--didn't want to be bothered with anyone so troublesome as I had made myself.""How _could_ you suspect _me_ of such a thing?""Oh, I really didn't," declared she, with all the earnestness of a generous nature, for she read into his heightened color and averted eyes the feelings she herself would have had before an unjust suspicion."It was merely an idea.And I didn't blame you--not in the least.It would have been the sensible----"Next thing, this child-woman, this mysterious mind of mixed precocity and innocence, would be showing that she had guessed a Cousin Nell.
"You are far too modest," interrupted he with a flirtatious smile."You didn't realize how strong an impression you made.
No, I really broke my leg.Don't you suppose I knew the twenty-five in the pocketbook wouldn't carry you far?" He saw--and naturally misunderstood--her sudden change of expression as he spoke of the amount.He went on apologetically, "I intended to bring more when I came.I was afraid to put money in the note for fear it'd never be delivered, if I did.And didn't I tell you to write--and didn't I give you my address here? Would I have done that, if I hadn't meant to stand by you?"Susan was convinced, was shamed by these smooth, plausible assertions and explanations."Your father's house--it's a big brick, with stone trimmings, standing all alone outside the little town--isn't it?"Spenser was again coloring deeply."Yes," admitted he uneasily.
But Susan didn't notice."I saw the doctor--and your family--on the veranda," she said.
He was now so nervous that she could not but observe it."They gave out that it was only a sprain," said he, "because I told them I didn't want it known.I didn't want the people at the office to know I was going to be laid up so long.I was afraid I'd lose my job.""I didn't hear anything about it," said she."I only saw as Iwas going by on a boat."
He looked disconcerted--but not to her eyes."Well--it's far in the past now," said he."Let's forget--all but the fun.""Yes--all but the fun." Then very sweetly, "But I'll never forget what I owe you.Not the money--not that, hardly at all--but what you did for me.It made me able to go on.""Don't speak of it," cried he, flushed and shamefaced."I didn't do half what I ought." Like most human beings he was aware of his more obvious--if less dangerous--faults and weaknesses.He liked to be called generous, but always had qualms when so called because he knew he was in fact of the familiar type classed as generous only because human beings are so artless in their judgments as to human nature that they cannot see that quick impulses quickly die.The only deep truth is that there are no generous natures but just natures--and they are rarely classed as generous because their slowly formed resolves have the air of prudence and calculation.
In the hotel she went to the dressing-room, took twenty-five dollars from the money in her stocking.As soon as they were seated in the restaurant she handed it to him.
"But this makes it you who are having me to dinner--and more,"he protested.
"If you knew what a weight it's been on me, you'd not talk that way," said she.
Her tone compelled him to accept her view of the matter.He laughed and put the money in his waistcoat pocket, saying: "Then I'll still owe you a dinner."During the past week she had been absorbing as only a young woman with a good mind and a determination to learn the business of living can absorb.The lessons before her had been the life that is lived in cities by those who have money to spend and experience in spending it; she had learned out of all proportion to opportunity.At a glance she realized that she was now in a place far superior to the Bohemian resorts which had seemed to her inexperience the best possible.From earliest childhood she had shown the delicate sense of good taste and of luxury that always goes with a practical imagination--practical as distinguished from the idealistic kind of imagination that is vague, erratic, and fond of the dreams which neither could nor should come true.And the reading she had done--the novels, the memoirs, the books of travel, the fashion and home magazines--had made deep and distinct impressions upon her, had prepared her--as they have prepared thousands of Americans in secluded towns and rural regions where luxury and even comfort are very crude indeed--for the possible rise of fortune that is the universal American dream and hope.She felt these new surroundings exquisitely--the subdued coloring, the softened lights, the thick carpets, the quiet elegance and comfort of the furniture.She noted the good manners of the well-trained waiter; she listened admiringly and memorizingly as Spenser ordered the dinner--a dinner of French good taste--small but fine oysters, a thick soup, a guinea hen _en casserole_, a fruit salad, fresh strawberry ice cream, dry champagne.She saw that Spenser knew what he was about, and she was delighted with him and proud to be with him and glad that he had tastes like her own--that is, tastes such as she proposed to learn to have.Of the men she had known or known about he seemed to her far and away the best.It isn't necessary to explain into what an attitude of mind and heart this feeling of his high superiority immediately put her--certainly not for the enlightenment of any woman.
"What are you thinking?" he asked--the question that was so often thrust at her because, when she thought intensely, there was a curiosity-compelling expression in her eyes.
"Oh--about all this," replied she."I like this sort of thing so much.I never had it in my life, yet now that I see it I feel as if I were part of it, as if it must belong to me." Her eyes met his sympathetic gaze."You understand, don't you?" He nodded.
