dge that what you said would account for their letting me make a
fool of myself. But I believe I am now, and I want to say it."

"I'm glad you can see it in that way," said Westover, "and since you do,
I don't mind saying that I think Mrs. Vostrand might have been a little
franker with you without being less kind. She was kind, but she wasn't
quite frank."

"Well, it's all over now," said Jeff, and he rose up and brushed the
whittlings from his knees. "And I guess it's just as well."

XXI.

That afternoon Westover saw Jeff helping Cynthia Whitwell into his
buckboard, and then, after his lively horse had made some paces of a
start, spring to the seat beside her, and bring it to a stand. "Can I
do anything for you over at Lovewell, Mr. Westover?" he called, and he
smiled toward the painter. Then he lightened the reins on the mare's
back; she squared herself for a start in earnest, and flashed down the
sloping hotel road to the highway below, and was lost to sight in the
clump of woods to the southward.

"That's a good friend of yours, Cynthy," he said, leaning toward the
girl with a simple comfort in her proximity. She was dressed in a
pale-pink color, with a hat of yet paler pink; without having a great
deal of fashion, she had a good deal of style. She looked bright and
fresh; there was a dash of pink in her cheeks, which suggested the color
of the sweetbrier, its purity and sweetness, and if there was something
in Cynthia's character and temperament that suggested its thorns too,
one still could not deny that she was like that flower. She liked to
shop, and she liked to ride after a good horse, as the neighbors would
have said; she was going over to Lovewell to buy a number of things,
and Jeff Durgin was driving her there with the swift mare that was his
peculiar property. She smiled upon him without the usual reservations
she contrived to express in her smiles.

"Well, I don't know anybody I'd rather have for my friend than Mr.
Westover." She added: "He acted like a friend the very first time I saw
him."

Jeff laughed with shameless pleasure in the reminiscence her words
suggested. "Well, I did get my come-uppings that time. And I don't know
but he's been a pretty good friend to me, too. I'm not sure he likes me;
but Mr. Westover is a man that could be your friend if he didn't like
you."

"What have you done to make him like you?" asked the girl.

"Nothing!" said Jeff, with a shout of laughter in his