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"Well, hooked, at any rate, and putting up a very poor struggle." "Why, you clever little divil, you! You'll be making me look like a stock girl next." Fanny did not telephone Heyl until the day she left New York. She had told herself she would not telephone him at all. He had sent her his New York address and telephone number months before, after that Sunday at the dunes.
And his voice had been well she pushed that thought outside her mind, too.... Clarence Heyl.... "He makes you think about things you're afraid to face by yourself. Big things. Things inside of you...." Fanny turned away from the window. She decided she must be tired, after all.
Fanny stood up, really angry now. She looked up at Clarence Heyl, and her eyes were flashing. Clarence Heyl looked down at her, and his eyes were the keenest, kindest, most gently humorous eyes she had ever encountered. You know that picture of Lincoln that shows us his eyes with much that expression in them? That's as near as I can come to conveying to you the whimsical pathos in this man.
It was little he knew of horses, and he rather feared them, as does a sailing man. But he went, nevertheless. Heyl still looked at Fanny, and Fanny at him. "It's absurd," said Fanny. "It's the kind of thing that doesn't happen." "It's simple enough, really," he answered. "I saw Ella Monahan in Chicago, and she told me all she knew, and something of what she had guessed.
Different, anyway. And then why, of course! Little Clarence Heyl, come back from the West. Clarence Heyl, the cowardy-cat. Her mind went back to that day of the street fight. She smiled.
In the course of the summer Prince Maurice, carrying out into practice the lessons which he had so steadily been pondering, reduced the towns and strong places of Heyl, Flemert, Elshout, Crevecoeur, Hayden, Steenberg, Rosendaal, and Osterhout.
He seemed to understand, for he said, "It's all right. I'm real enough. Can you walk?" "Yes." But she tried it and found she could not. She decided she was too tired to care. "I stumbled over a thing a horrible thing a gravestone. And I must have hurt my leg. I didn't know " She leaned against him, a dead weight. "Tell you what," said Heyl, cheerfully. "You wait here.
It was he, too, who made a little bonfire of papers, crusts, and bones, as is the cleanly habit of your true woodsman. Then they stretched out, full length, in the noon sun, on the warm, clean sand. "What's your best price on one-sixth doz. flannel vests?" inquired Heyl. And, "Oh, shut up!" said Fanny, elegantly. Heyl laughed as one who hugs a secret.
Just as naturally Fanny's arm crept up, and about his neck. So they remained for a moment, until he bent so that his lips touched her hair. Her head came up at that, sharply, so that it bumped his chin. They both laughed, looking into each other's eyes, but at what they saw there they stopped laughing and were serious. "Dear," said Heyl. "Dearest." The lids drooped over Fanny's eyes.
Ella found herself suddenly abashed before those clear, far-seeing eyes. "You think I'm a gabby old girl, don't you?" "I think you're a wonderful woman," said Heyl. "Very wise, and very kind." "Why thanks," faltered Ella. "Why thanks." They said their good-bys. Ella hugged Fanny warm-heartedly. Then she turned away, awkwardly. Heyl put his two hands on Fanny's shoulders and looked down at her.
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