There was something peculiar in the tone of her voice--something almost
beseeching, as if she either wanted sympathy, or encouragement for the
performance of some good act. But Richard did not so understand her. He
was, to tell the truth, a very little cross, as men, and women, too, are
apt to be when tired with sight-seeing and dissipation. He had been away
from his business three whole weeks, traveling with a party for not one
member of which, with the exception of his wife, Melinda, Marcia, and
Ella, did he care a straw.
Hotel life at St. Paul he regarded as a bore, second only to life at
Saratoga. The falls of Minnehaha "was a very pretty little stream," he
thought, but what people could see about it go into such ecstasies as
Ethelyn, and even Melinda did, he could not tell. Perhaps if Harry
Clifford had not formed a part of every scene where Ethelyn was the
prominent figure, he might have judged differently. But Harry had been
greatly in his way, and Richard did not like it any more than he liked
Ethelyn's flirting so much with him, and leaving him, her husband, to
look about for himself. He had shown, too, that he did not like it to
Marcia Fenton and Ella Backus who probably thought him a bear, as
perhaps he was. On the whole, Richard was very uncomfortable in his
mind, and Aunt Van Buren's letter did not tend in the least to improve
his temper; so when Ethelyn asked him of what he was thinking, and
accompanied her question with a stroke of her hand upon his hair, he
answered her, "Nothing much, except that I am tired and sleepy."
The touch upon his hair he had felt to his finger tips, for Ethelyn
seldom caressed him even as much as this; but he was in too moody a
frame of mind to respond as he would once have done. His manner was not
very encouraging, but, as if she had nerved herself to some painful
duty, Ethelyn persisted, and said to him next: "You have not seen Aunt
Van Buren's letter. Shall I read you what she says?"
Every nerve in Richard's body had been quivering with curiosity to see
that letter, but now, when the coveted privilege was within his reach,
he refused it; and, little dreaming of all he was throwing aside,
answered indifferently: "No, I don't know that I care to hear it. I
hardly think it will pay. Where are they now?"
"At Saratoga," Ethelyn replied; but her voice was not the same which had
addressed Richard first; there was a coldness, a constraint in it now,
as if her good resolution had been thrown back upon her and frozen up
the impulse prompting her to the right.