Maria Dorrs-Flathers could no longer see the expression upon the man's face,—the weary resignation that drew down the corners of her guest's mouth. The new and curious emotions which beset him were for him alone. How could he explain his summer's dream—the long talks, the longer letters, which followed those three days of self-revelation?
The man cringed within himself from himself. He was cowed by this his own inadequacy to meet his own individual demands.
"You are still troubled, you poor dear bishop-elect! You are such an idealist, and so honest, too! Leave it all to me. You are going to the Diocesan Convention at Detroit. Miss Hart shall come here while you are away. We'll entertain her royally. She shall see all that the church is doing, and learn all we hope it may do through this new field. She will realize, if she's half clever, that, after all, she is not the woman for the place. You'll get home Saturday night and she can hear you preach Sunday. You will come out for dinner at night, but I'll have other friends to meet her, too. It will all be very simple."
They had arisen; Mr. Archibald had rung for the man servant, who brought his coat and shovel-hat. He did not enter the house again, but bade an informal good-night to his hostess and walked down the steps to the terrace which skirts the Lake wall.
The great masonry stretched on for two miles, and the man tramped defiantly along its outer edge. The dark waters of Huron beat answering defiance as they struck back upon the granite bulwark.
The porter of the drawing-room car just pulling out of Albany had slipped the striped covers upon the pillows, tucked one behind Theodora Hart's back, shaken out John March's overcoat, given a last whisk of his duster across the rail of the adjacent seat, and vanished into the buffet at the end of the car.
"Why, Cousin John, we're all alone, and I never was so glad in all my life to see anybody as I am to see you! What a fortunate happening for you to be in Albany just when I needed you most!"
There was the faintest twinkle in the corner of John March's eye. He was too clever a young politician, however, to let his cousin know that he had timed his official business at the Stale Capitol in order to meet the one woman of his world who meant to him just sweet womanhood.
When Theodora Hart had finished her college work, her father's younger cousin, this same John March, ten years her senior, had asked her to marry him. Theodora treated the offer in almost cavalier fashion. Although her deeper nature fully appreciated the dignity of marriage and the great compliment which John March had paid her, still the fact that she, Theodora Hart, fresh from her school work, with nothing but theories and idealism, was a most unfit companion for a society man with political ambitions, gave her occasion to handle the proposition with a seeming merriment, a nonchalance which made possible an adjustment of friendship almost unique. She had said in the end: "Why, John, we're cousins! Of course we can't drift apart even if we want to; but I'm no more fitted to be your wife than you are to be a deaconess. I know I have a career before me, and I know you have a still greater one before you. Let's be awfully good comrades. I'll promise to be proud of you in your success and you'll be proud of me."
John March was proving himself the good comrade now, as he had every day for five years. He was a patient man, but most tenacious. He also had the family characteristic of humor which ever gave a piquancy to this would-be complacent friendship.
An instance of it followed a moment after the porter had left them, when Theodora continued speaking:
"Why, John, I'm so full of my experience in Sudbury I shall talk all the way to New York. I hate to miss this beautiful scenery, but it must be lost for the sake of my story."
"Never mind, Theo," her cousin replied, drawing the shade to rest her eyes. "When you decide to take your wedding journey we'll do the Hudson Valley again."
"You're as shameless as ever, Cousin John! Now listen. You read all the letters that passed between Mr. Archibald and me last summer, didn't you?"
