into the orchard.

Calista heard nothing. In the hot June evening she was fresh and cool
enough to be akin to the rejoicing fields, a nymph of beech or willow.
Now and then she looked down the road and saw no one, but she did not
seem disappointed. It was quite dark and the fireflies were trailing up
and down when wheels stopped at the gate, and she drew back behind a
lilac-bush that screened the porch, and sat still.

Conrad, striding up the path, started when he saw her. "Oh, it's you!"
he said, coldly. She gave a short answer, and he stood frowning at
nothing and looking very tall and black. "Want to take a little ride?"
he asked.

"No, I guess not."

"You stay at home too much," he said, presently. "You haven't been off
the place since Aunt Hannah left."

"I don't care to go. I can't leave Mary here all alone. It wouldn't be
safe."

She stayed silently in her corner as though waiting for him to leave--a
white shadow beside the black mass of the lilac-bush. Dolly at the gate
tossed her head until the reins scraped on the gate-post. Down in the
orchard a whippoorwill cried.

He was like a horse that takes the bit and the driver was his own
will--his own self. She made no resistance when he threw himself down
beside her: she was pliant, her cheek cool, she even looked at him
haughtily. He did not know that she slipped out of his arms just before
he would have released her, nor that she was all one flame of triumphant
happiness. She seemed as untouched as the starlight.

"Calista," he stammered, "I hope you overlook it."

"What about my sister Mary?" she asked, dryly. "I thought you didn't
look to any one else."

"I didn't. I tell you the truth. I was unwilling. I fought it off all I
could, but now I give in. I can do no more."

"So you think you like me as well as you like her?"

"Calista, I would ask you if Mary stood here and heard us."

The woman seemed to bloom like an opening rose. She looked at him, but
it was as though she saw some vision of success that she was just about
to grasp. "I am satisfied," she said.

There was a sound on the walk, and they lifted their heads; then they
were scarcely conscious of each other's presence. Up from the gate, her
nightdress hanging about her feet, her hair pale in the dim light, came
the little girl. She climbed the steps and passed fearlessly into the
dark house, smiling at the two with the radiant content of happy
childhood, soothed and petted,--her sma