o continue
Honora's lessons in golf--or rather that she found time, in the midst of
her manifold and self-imposed duties, to take them. And in this diversion
she was encouraged by Mrs. Holt herself. On Saturday morning, the heat
being unusual, they ended their game by common consent at the fourth hole
and descended a wood road to Silver Brook, to a spot which they had
visited once before and had found attractive. Honora, after bathing her
face in the pool, perched herself on a boulder. She was very fresh and
radiant.
This fact, if she had not known it, she might have gathered from Mr.
Silence's expression. He had laid down his coat; his sleeves were rolled
up and his arms were tanned, and he stood smoking a cigarette and gazing
at her with approbation. She lowered her eyes.
"Well, we've had a pretty good time, haven't we?" he remarked.
Lightning sometimes fails in its effect, but the look she flashed back at
him from under her blue lashes seldom misses.
"I'm afraid I haven't been a very apt pupil," she replied modestly.
"You're on the highroad to a cup," he assured her. "If I could take you
on for another week" He paused, and an expression came into his eyes
which was not new to Honora, nor peculiar to Mr. Silence. "I have to go
back to town on Monday."
If Honora felt any regret at this announcement, she did not express it.
"I thought you couldn't stand Silverdale much longer," she replied.
"You know why I stayed," he said, and paused again--rather awkwardly for
Mr. Spence. But Honora was silent. "I had a letter this morning from my
partner, Sidney Dallam, calling me back."
"I suppose you are very busy," said Honora, detaching a copper-green
scale of moss from the boulder.
"The fact is," he explained, "that we have received an order of
considerable importance, for which I am more or less responsible.
Something of a compliment--since we are, after all, comparatively young
men."
"Sometimes," said Honora, "sometimes I wish I were a man. Women are so
hampered and circumscribed, and have to wait for things to happen to
them. A man can do what he wants. He can go into Wall Street and fight
until he controls miles of railroads and thousands and thousands of men.
That would be a career!"
"Yes," he agreed, smilingly, "it's worth fighting for."
Her eyes were burning with a strange light as she looked down the vista
of the wood road by which they had come. He flung his cigarette into the
water and took
|