A Colony of Girls Part 13

"None other than myself."

"Oh, you are too good," she cried laughingly, springing to her feet, and making him a sweeping obeisance.

"If that is your honest opinion, Miss Jean, suppose you prove it by going back with me."

"I can't be a traitor to my words," and she tossed her book on to the table, and preceded him out into the hall-way.

"Is it cool enough for a wrap?"

Farr surveyed her muslin gown with a critical eye.

"Indeed, it is."

"All right," she yielded carelessly, "but I never take cold."

She picked up a coat from the rack, and Farr helped her on with it, and then they wandered out into the night.

"Is it not delicious?" Jean sighed, as they sauntered leisurely along.

"It seems so to me," he returned, with a glance into the girl's eyes.

"Miss Jean," he began, after a brief silence, "Did you not tell me once that there was a pretty walk through the shrubbery?"

"Yes?" with a note of interrogation.

"In which direction would it lead us, if we should take it now?"

"To the parsonage, eventually, but," hesitatingly, "by a much longer way than by the path through the hedge."

"The longer, the better--for me."

"I don't know what they will think has become of us," she demurred.

Farr laughed easily.

"I never trouble myself too much about what people think."

"I don't doubt that you are in no way different from the rest of your s.e.x. I believe it is generally conceded that selfishness is its salient characteristic."

"A popular fallacy. Do I not prove it to you, Miss Jean?"

"Oh, of course you are the exception that proves the rule," she returned with gentle sarcasm.

He stopped suddenly, midway in the path they were traversing, and looked straight down at her. There was a ring of deeper feeling in his voice as he spoke:

"I want you to think just as well of me as you can, and I cannot imagine having a more earnest desire than that I might always prove worthy of your kindest thoughts."

There was a tinge of defiance in Jean's manner as she answered him flippantly:

"Don't you think I would be using my time rather aimlessly, Mr. Farr, were I to give it up to thoughts of you?"

An expression of keen displeasure crossed Farr's face.

"I beg your pardon," he said stiffly.

Instantly Jean repented of her foolish words, and was heartily sorry to have wounded her companion, but the slight tremor at her heart warned her that to confess would be unwise.

"I think of you quite as much as you deserve," she ventured with a nervous little laugh, and she began to walk on toward the shrubbery at a brisker pace.

Farr made no immediate rejoinder, and when he spoke again it was in an altered tone.

"There is quite a fragrance to this box-wood, is there not?"

"Yes, indeed, and a very pleasant one. The perfume is heavy these warm nights after the sun has been shining on it all day."

"You have no idea what a charm the country has for me. I have really been in it so little since I was a boy."

"But your home is in the country, is it not?"

"Yes, but my family spend the winters in Washington, and our country home is only open during the summer months. I don't often get a chance to go down there. My mother keeps the house pretty well filled, for my two married brothers live at home."

"And have you no sisters?"

Farr's voice, which had sounded a little cold when speaking of his home, changed to sudden tenderness.

"Yes, one, and she is the dearest little girl in the world."

"I suppose you love her dearly, and do your best to spoil her?"

"Well, Clarisse and I are certainly great chums," he a.s.sented.

"How nice it must be to have an older brother. We girls have always regretted so that we did not have one, although," with a sad little sigh, "we used to have a dear old friend who was just as good as a brother; but he has gone away now."

"I suppose that there are times when they are of some use," said Farr, "although men are so hopelessly selfish."

"I would not think of contradicting you," Jean laughingly averred.

"Come, we are talking a great deal, and not making much headway, and it must be growing late."

"I am all tangled up in this maze of by-paths. In which direction is the parsonage from here?"

"If you don't mind climbing a stone wall, we can turn to our right, and take a short cut, and we will be there in no time."

Farr agreed, and they walked on in silence until they had emerged from the shrubbery into a small clearing, skirted on the further side by a wall, its line broken at a certain point where some stones had been thrown down. Farr sprang lightly across, and turned back to a.s.sist Jean. Just then the moon, which had slipped under a cloud, shone out again, its soft rays falling directly on the girl's face. She had one foot already on the first stepping stone when he put up his hand to stay her.

"Well," she asked, as he did not speak. "What is it? Are you not going to help me?"

"Of course I am, but," leaning a little toward her, "this wall is a sort of a Rubicon. Once crossed we cannot go back, for we are then in the parsonage grounds. It has been a pleasant walk, and one to be remembered, has it not?"