t."

"Oh, I guess so," said Jeff, pulling up a long blade of grass and taking
it between his teeth. "Anyway, it comes to the same thing as far as I'm
concerned. It's for her to say what shall be done and what sha'n't be
done in her own house, even if it is a hotel. That's what I shall do in
mine. We're used to these little differences; but we talk it out, and
that's the end of it. I shouldn't really go, though, if I didn't think I
ought to get in some work on those conditions before the thing begins
regularly. I should have liked to help here a little, for I've had a good
time and I ought to be willing to pay for it. But she's in good hands.
Jackson's well--for him--and she's got Cynthia."

The easy security of tone with which Jeff pronounced the name vexed
Westover. "I suppose your mother would hardly know how to do without her,
even if you were at home," he said, dryly.

"Well, that's a fact," Jeff assented, with a laugh for the hit. "And
Jackson thinks the world of her. I believe he trusts her judgment more
than he does mother's about the hotel. Well, I must be going. You don't
know where Mrs. Vostrand is going to be this winter, I suppose?"

"No, I don't," said Westover. He could not help a sort of blind
resentment in the situation. If he could not feel that Jeff was the best
that could be for Cynthia, he had certainly no reason to regret that his
thoughts could be so lightly turned from her. But the fact anomalously
incensed him as a slight to the girl, who might have been still more
sacrificed by Jeff's constancy. He forced himself to add: "I fancy Mrs.
Vostrand doesn't know herself."

"I wish I didn't know where I was going to be," said Jeff. "Well,
good-bye, Mr. Westover. I'll see you in Boston."

"Oh, good-bye." The painter freed himself from his brush and palette for
a parting handshake, reluctantly.

Jeff plunged down the hill, waving a final adieu from the corner of the
hotel before he vanished round it.

Mrs. Vostrand and her daughter were at breakfast when Westover came in
after the early light had been gone some time. They entreated him to join
them at their table, and the mother said: "I suppose you were up soon
enough to see young Mr. Durgin off. Isn't it too bad he has to go back to
college when it's so pleasant in the country?"

"Not bad for him," said Westover. "He's a young man who can stand a great
deal of hard work." Partly because he was a little tired of Jeff, and
partly because he was