The Awakening of Helena Richie - Page 109/229

"I wish your confounded Old Chester people would mind their own

affairs! This prying into things that are none of their business

is--"

Lloyd Pryor stopped; read over what he had written, and ground his

teeth. No; he couldn't send her such a letter. It would call down a

storm of reproach and anger and love. And, after all, it wasn't her

fault; this doctor fellow had said that she did not know of his call.

Still, if she hadn't been friendly with those people, the man wouldn't

have thought of "looking him up"! Then he remembered that he had been

the one to be friendly with the "doctor fellow"; and that made him

angry again. But his next letter was more reasonable, and so more

deadly.

"You will see that if I had not happened to be at home, it might

have been a very serious matter. I must ask you to consider my

position, and discourage your friends in paying any attention to

me."

This, too, he tore up, with a smothered word. It wouldn't do; if he

wounded her too much, she was capable of taking the next train--! And

so he wrote, with non-committal brevity: "I have to be in Mercer Friday night, and I think I can get down to

Old Chester for a few hours between stages on Saturday. I hope your

cook has recovered, and we can have some dinner? Tell David he can get

his sling ready; and do, for Heaven's sake, fend off visitors!" Then

he added a postscript: "I want you all to myself." He smiled as he

wrote that, but half shook his head. He did not (such was his code)

enjoy being agreeable for a purpose. "But I can't help it," he

thought, frowning; "she is so very difficult, just now."

He was right about the postscript; she read the letter with a curl of

her lip. "'A few hours,'" she said; then--"'I want you all to

myself.'" The delicate color flooded into her face; she crushed the

letter to her lips, her eyes running over with laughing tears.

"Oh, David," she cried,--"let's go and tell Maggie--we must have such

a dinner! He's coming!"

"Who?" said David.

"Why, Mr. Pryor, dear little boy. I want you to love him. Will you

love him?" "I'll see," said David; "is Alice coming?"

Instantly her gayety flagged. "No, dear, no!"

"Well; I guess she's too old to play with;" David consoled himself;

"she's nineteen."