al upon the
acquaintance a student has, and whether he is popular in college."
Westover found this road a little impassable, and he faltered.

Cynthia did not apparently notice his hesitation. "Do you think Mrs.
Durgin would like it?"

"Mrs. Durgin?" Westover found that he had been leaving her out of the
account, and had been thinking only of Cynthia's pleasure or pain.
"Well, I don't suppose--it would be rather fatiguing--Did Jeff want her
to come too?"

"He said so."

"That's very nice of him. If he could devote himself to her; but--And
would she like to go?"

"To please him, she would." Westover was silent, and the girl surprised
him by the appeal she suddenly made to him. "Mr. Westover, do you
believe it would be very well for either of us to go? I think it would
be better for us to leave all that part of his life alone. It's no use
in pretending that we're like the kind of people he knows, or that we
know their ways, and I don't believe--"

Westover felt his heart rise in indignant sympathy. "There isn't any
one he knows to compare with you!" he said, and in this he was thinking
mainly of Bessie Lynde. "You're worth a thousand--If I were--if he's
half a man he would be proud--I beg your pardon! I don't mean--but you
understand--"

Cynthia put her head far out of the window and looked along the steep
roof before them. "There is a blind off one of the windows. I heard it
clapping in the wind the other night. I must go and see the number of
the room." She drew her head in quickly and ran away without letting him
see her face.

He followed her. "Let me help you put it on again!"

"No, no!" she called back. "Frank will do that, or Jombateeste, when
they come to shut up the house."

XLI.

Westover, did not meet Durgin for several days after his return from
Lion's Head. He brought messages for him from his mother and from
Whitwell, and he waited for him to come and get them so long that he had
to blame himself for not sending them to him. When Jeff appeared, at the
end of a week, Westover had a certain embarrassment in meeting him, and
the effort to overcome this carried him beyond his sincerity. He was
aware of feigning the cordiality he showed, and of having less real
liking for him than ever before. He suggested that he must be busier
every day, now, with his college work, and he resented the air of social
prosperity which Jeff put on in saying, Yes, there was that, and then he
had some engagement