“At any rate,” Jeff added, “I haven’t
got anything to say against it. Mr. Westover,
I’ve always wanted to say one thing to you.
Then I came to your room that night, I wanted to
complain of Mrs. Vostrand for not letting me know
about the engagement; and I wasn’t man enough
to acknowledge that what you said would account for
their letting me make a fool of myself. But
I believe I am now, and I want to say it.”
“I’m glad you can see it in that way,”
said Westover, “and since you do, I don’t
mind saying that I think Mrs. Vostrand might have been
a little franker with you without being less kind.
She was kind, but she wasn’t quite frank.”
“Well, it’s all over now,” said
Jeff, and he rose up and brushed the whittlings from
his knees. “And I guess it’s just
as well.”
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.”
