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"Isn't Bles developing splendidly?" she said to Miss Smith one afternoon. There was an unmistakable note of enthusiasm in her voice. Miss Smith slowly closed her letter-file but did not look up. "Yes," she said crisply. "He's eighteen now quite a man." "And most interesting to talk with." "H'm very" drily. Mary was busy with her own thoughts, and she did not notice the other woman's manner.
She compared herself with Helen Cresswell. Helen was a contented wife and mother because she was fitted for the position, and happy in it; while she who had aimed so high had fallen piteously. From such a fate she would save Zora and Bles.
The woman contemplated Bles in momentary perplexity, then bowing in turn, left. Bles followed, debating just what he ought to say, how far he might venture to accompany her, what but she easily settled it all. "I thank you good-bye," she said briefly at the door, and was gone.
Pity surged and fought in his breast; but one thought held and burned him. He bent to her fiercely: "Who?" he demanded. She pointed toward the Cresswell Oaks, and he turned away. She did not attempt to stop him again, but dropped her hands and stared drearily up into the clear sky with its shining worlds. "Good-bye, Bles," she said slowly. "I thank God he gave you to me just a little time."
And now, when she turned her head, she would see the woman who was to marry Bles Alwyn. She had often dreamed of her, and had set a high ideal. She wanted her to be handsome, well dressed, earnest and good. She felt a sort of person proprietorship in her, and when at last the quickened pulse died to its regular healthy beat, she turned and looked and knew.
"Come," she said, "I'll take the clothes home, then we'll go" she glanced at him "down where the dreams are." And laughing, they hurried on. Elspeth stood in the path that wound down to the cottage, and without a word Zora dropped the basket at her feet. She turned back; but Bles, struck by a thought, paused.
These conclusions she did not pretend to have originated; but she adopted them from reading and conversation, after hesitating for a year before such puzzling contradictions as Bles Alwyn and Harry Cresswell. For her to conclude to treat Bles Alwyn as a man despite his color was as impossible as to think Mr. Cresswell a criminal.
She thought of the golden sheen of the cotton, and the cold March winds of New England; of her brother who apparently noted nothing of leaves and winds and seasons; and of the mighty Cresswells whom Miss Smith so evidently disliked. Suddenly she became aware of her long silence and the silence of the boy. "Bles," she began didactically, "where are you from?"
"I saw you enjoyed the concert, Mr. Alwyn," she said, and one of the young ladies rippled audibly. Bles darkened painfully, realizing that these people must have been just behind him. But he answered frankly: "Yes, I did immensely I hope I didn't disturb you; you see, I'm not used to hearing such singing." Mr. Teerswell, compelled to listen, laughed drily.
I helped in the campaign; I've got the Negro secret societies backing me and I don't mind telling you the solid Southern Congressional delegation. I'm trying now ostensibly for a chief-clerkship under Bles, and I'm pretty sure of it: it pays twenty-five hundred. See here: if we can make Bles do some fool talking and get it into the papers, he'll be ditched, and I'll be Register."
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