The Third Violet | Page 7

them
into doing just as they please. Why, when I was in Brussels----"
"Oh, come now, Hollie, you never were in Brussels, you know," said
the younger Worcester girl.
"What of that, Millicent?" demanded Hollanden. "This is
autobiography."
"Well, I don't care, Hollie. You tell such whoppers."
With a gesture of despair he again started away; whereupon the
Worcester girls shouted in chorus, "Oh, I say, Hollie, come back! Don't
be angry. We didn't mean to tease you, Hollie--really, we didn't!"
"Well, if you didn't," said Hollanden, "why did you----"
The elder Worcester girl was gazing fixedly at the top of the cliff. "Oh,
there they are! I wonder why they don't come down?"
CHAPTER VI.
Stanley, the setter, walked to the edge of the precipice and, looking
over at the falls, wagged his tail in friendly greeting. He was braced
warily, so that if this howling white animal should reach up a hand for
him he could flee in time.
The girl stared dreamily at the red-stained crags that projected from the
pines of the hill across the stream. Hawker lazily aimed bits of moss at
the oblivious dog and missed him.
"It must be fine to have something to think of beyond just living," said
the girl to the crags.
"I suppose you mean art?" said Hawker.

"Yes, of course. It must be finer, at any rate, than the ordinary thing."
He mused for a time. "Yes. It is--it must be," he said. "But then--I'd
rather just lie here."
The girl seemed aggrieved. "Oh, no, you wouldn't. You couldn't stop.
It's dreadful to talk like that, isn't it? I always thought that painters
were----"
"Of course. They should be. Maybe they are. I don't know. Sometimes I
am. But not to-day."
"Well, I should think you ought to be so much more contented than just
ordinary people. Now, I----"
"You!" he cried--"you are not 'just ordinary people.'"
"Well, but when I try to recall what I have thought about in my life, I
can't remember, you know. That's what I mean."
"You shouldn't talk that way," he told her.
"But why do you insist that life should be so highly absorbing for me?"
"You have everything you wish for," he answered, in a voice of deep
gloom.
"Certainly not. I am a woman."
"But----"
"A woman, to have everything she wishes for, would have to be
Providence. There are some things that are not in the world."
"Well, what are they?" he asked of her.
"That's just it," she said, nodding her head, "no one knows. That's what
makes the trouble."

"Well, you are very unreasonable."
"What?"
"You are very unreasonable. If I were you--an heiress----"
The girl flushed and turned upon him angrily.
"Well!" he glowered back at her. "You are, you know. You can't deny
it."
She looked at the red-stained crags. At last she said, "You seemed
really contemptuous."
"Well, I assure you that I do not feel contemptuous. On the contrary, I
am filled with admiration. Thank Heaven, I am a man of the world.
Whenever I meet heiresses I always have the deepest admiration." As
he said this he wore a brave hang-dog expression. The girl surveyed
him coldly from his chin to his eyebrows. "You have a handsome
audacity, too."
He lay back in the long grass and contemplated the clouds.
"You should have been a Chinese soldier of fortune," she said.
He threw another little clod at Stanley and struck him on the head.
"You are the most scientifically unbearable person in the world," she
said.
Stanley came back to see his master and to assure himself that the
clump on the head was not intended as a sign of serious displeasure.
Hawker took the dog's long ears and tried to tie them into a knot.
"And I don't see why you so delight in making people detest you," she
continued.
Having failed to make a knot of the dog's ears, Hawker leaned back and
surveyed his failure admiringly. "Well, I don't," he said.

"You do."
"No, I don't."
"Yes, you do. You just say the most terrible things as if you positively
enjoyed saying them."
"Well, what did I say, now? What did I say?"
"Why, you said that you always had the most extraordinary admiration
for heiresses whenever you met them."
"Well, what's wrong with that sentiment?" he said. "You can't find fault
with that!"
"It is utterly detestable."
"Not at all," he answered sullenly. "I consider it a tribute--a graceful
tribute."
Miss Fanhall arose and went forward to the edge of the cliff. She
became absorbed in the falls. Far below her a bough of a hemlock
drooped to the water, and each swirling, mad wave caught it and made
it nod--nod--nod. Her back was half turned toward Hawker.
After a