"I've been away longer than I expected--a good deal longer. Things must want looking after, I suppose. Green can take my place for a while, but--"

"Green is doing very well--better than I thought he could. He seems to have taken a new start, that man."

"I'm not used to loafing, sir. If there's no particular reason for my staying on here--"

Mr. Jarrott fitted the tips of his fingers together, and answered slowly.

"There's no particular reason--just now. We've been speaking of--of--a--certain changes--But it's too soon--"

"Of course, sir, I don't want to urge my private wishes against--"

"Quite so; quite so; I understand that. A--a--private wishes, you say?"

"Yes, sir; entirely private."

The gray-blue eyes rested on him in a gaze meant to be uninquisitive and non-committal, but which, as a matter of fact, expressed something from which Strange turned his own glance away.

"Very well; I'd go," the old man said, quietly.

Strange left his cards that afternoon at the house just when he knew Mrs.

Jarrott would be resting and Miss Jarrott driving with Miss Colfax. At seven he took the night boat up the Plata to the Parana.

XI

"Evie, what do you think made Mr. Strange rush away like that? Your uncle says he didn't have to--that he might just as well have stayed in town."

"I'm sure I don't know," was Evie's truthful response, as she flitted about the dining-room table arranging the flowers before luncheon.

"Your uncle thinks you do," Mrs. Jarrott said, leaning languidly back in an arm-chair. Her tone and manner implied that the matter had nothing to do with her, though she was willing to speak of it. This was as far as she could come to showing an interest in anything outside herself since the boys died. She would not have brought up the subject now if the girl's pallor during the last few days had not made them uneasy.

"I haven't the least idea," Miss Colfax declared. "I was just as much surprised as you were, Aunt Helen."

"Your uncle thinks you must have said something to him--"

"I didn't. I didn't say anything to him whatever. Why should I? He's nothing to me."

"Of course he's nothing to you, if you're engaged to Billy Merrow."

Miss Colfax leaned across the table, taking a longer time than necessary to give its value to a certain rose.

"I'm not engaged to him now," she said, as if after reflection--"not in my own mind, that is."

"But you are in his, I suppose."

"Well, I can't help that, can I?"

"Not unless you write and tell him it's all over."

Miss Colfax stood still, a large red flower raised in protestation.

"That would be the cruellest thing I ever heard of," she exclaimed, with conviction. "I don't see how you can bear to make the suggestion."

"Then what are you going to do about it?"

"I needn't do anything just yet. There's no hurry--till I get back to New York."

"Do you mean to let him go on thinking--?"

"He'd much rather. Whenever I tell him, it will be too soon for him.

There's no reason why he should know earlier than he wants to."

"But is that honor, dear?"

"How can I tell?" At so unreasonable a question the blue eyes clouded with threatening tears. "I can't go into all those fine points, Aunt Helen, do you see? I've just got to do what's right."

Mrs. Jarrot rose with an air of helplessness. She loved her brother's daughter tenderly enough, but she admitted to herself that she did not understand young girls. Having borne only sons, she had never been called upon to struggle with the baffling.

"I hope you're not going to tell any one, Aunt Helen," Evie begged, as Mrs. Jarrott seemed about to leave the room. "I shouldn't want Uncle Jarrott to know, or Aunt Queenie, either."

"I shall certainly spare them," Mrs. Jarrott said, with what for her was asperity. "They would be surprised, to say the least, after the encouragement you gave Mr. Strange."

"I didn't give it--he took it. I couldn't stop him."

"Did you want to?"

"I thought of it--sometimes--till I gave up being engaged to Billy."

"And having pa.s.sed that mental crisis, I suppose it didn't matter."

"Well, the mental crisis, as you call it, left me free. I sha'n't have to reproach myself--"

"No; Mr. Merrow will do that for you."

"Of course he will. I expect him to. It would be very queer if he didn't.

I shall have a dreadful time making him see things my way. And with all that hanging over me, I should think I might look for a little sympathy from you, Aunt Helen. Lots of girls wouldn't have said anything about it.

But I told you because I want you to see I'm perfectly straight and above-board."

Mrs. Jarrott said no more for the moment, but later in the day she confided to her husband that the girl puzzled her. "She mixes me up so that I don't know which of us is talking sense." She was not at all sure that Evie was fretting about Mr. Strange--though she might be. If she wasn't, then she couldn't be well. That was the only explanation of her depression and loss of appet.i.te.

"You can bet your life he's thinking of her," Mr. Jarrott said, with the lapse from colloquial dignity he permitted himself when he got into his house-jacket. "He's praying to her image as if it was a wooden saint."

With the omission of the word wooden this was much what Strange was doing at Rosario. Not venturing--in view of all the circ.u.mstances--to write to her, he could only erect a shrine in his heart, and serve it with a devotion very few saints enjoy. He found, however, that absence from her did not enable him to form detached and impartial opinions on his situation, just as work brought no subconsciously reached solution to the problems he had to face. In these respects he was disappointed in the results of his unnecessary flight from town.