imagined that her eyes looked
troubled, excited. Was it possible that even in her safe ivory tower of
aloofness from life, she had felt the jarring blow of the brutally
immediate tragedy of the Eagle Rocks? Or perhaps even Cousin Hetty's
disappearance . . . she had always hated reminders of death.

As Marise, surprised, looked at her and wondered thus passingly if she
felt any reverberation from the tragedy-laden air about them, Eugenia's
face hardened back into its usual smooth calm; over the eyes that had
been for an instant transparent and alive with troubled brightness, slid
their acquired expression of benignant indifference. She answered
Marise's faintly inquiring gaze by getting up as if to go, remarking in
a clear low tone (she was the only person who had come into the house
who had not succumbed to that foolish, instinctive muffling of the
voice), "I forgot to give you a message from Neale. He is obliged to be
away today, on business, something about a deed to some wood-land."

Marise was slightly surprised. "Where is he going?" she asked. "In the
Ford? On the train?" How little she had thought about the mill of late,
that she should be so entirely blank as to this business trip.

"Oh, I didn't even try to understand," said Eugenia, smoothing the
shining silk of her parasol. "Business finds no echo in me, you know. A
man came to supper last night, unexpectedly, and they talked
interminably about some deal, lumbering, lines, surveys, deeds . . . till
Toucle came in with the news of the accident. The man was from New
Hampshire, with that droll, flat New Hampshire accent. You know how they
talk, 'bahn' and 'yahd' for barn and yard."

The words "New Hampshire" and "deeds" stirred a disagreeable association
of ideas in Marise's mind. The shyster lawyer who had done the Powers
out of their inheritance had come from New Hampshire. However, she
supposed there were other people in the state besides dishonest lawyers.

Eugenia went on casually. "It seemed quite important. Neale was absorbed
by it. He told me afterward, Neale did, that the man had acted as agent
for him some years ago in securing a big tract of wood-land around here,
something that had been hard to get hold of."

Marise was startled and showed it by a quick lift of her head. She had
never known Neale to employ an agent. She looked hard at Eugenia's
quiet, indifferent face. The other seemed not to notice her surprise,
and returned her look with a long