and the guests, denying, but not
resenting, their accusations with all the sang froid of a hardened
criminal. He did not care particularly to go to Canada, he said. Why
should he, when he was innocent? But, if Mr. Cooke insisted, he would
enjoy seeing that part of the lake and the Canadian side.

Afterwards I perceived Miss Thorn down by the brookside, washing dishes.
Her sleeves were drawn back to the elbow, and a dainty white apron
covered her blue skirt, while the wind from the lake had disentangled
errant wisps of her hair. I stood on the brink above, secure, as I
thought, from observation, when she chanced to look up and spied me.

"Mr. Crocker," she called, "would you like to make yourself useful?"

I was decidedly embarrassed. Her manner was as frank and unconstrained
as though I had not been shunning her for weeks past.

"If such a thing is possible," I replied.

"Do you know a dish-cloth when you see one?"

I was doubtful. But I procured the cloth from Miss Trevor and returned.
There was an air about Miss Thorn that was new to me.

"What an uncompromising man you are, Mr. Crocker," she said to me. "Once
a person is unfortunate enough to come under the ban of your disapproval
you have nothing whatever to do with them. Now it seems that I have
given you offence in some way. Is it not so?"

"You magnify my importance," I said.

"No temporizing, Mr. Crocker," she went on, as though she meant to be
obeyed; "sit down there, and let's have it out. I like you too well to
quarrel with you."

There was no resisting such a command, and I threw myself on the pebbles
at her feet.

"I thought we were going to be great friends," she said. "You and Mr.
Farrar were so kind to me on the night of my arrival, and we had such fun
watching the dance together."

"I confess I thought so, too. But you expressed opinions then that I
shared. You have since changed your mind, for some unaccountable
reason."

She paused in her polishing, a shining dish in her hand, and looked down
at me with something between a laugh and a frown.

"I suppose you have never regretted speaking hastily," she said.

"Many a time," I returned, warming; "but if I ever thought a judgment
measured and distilled, it was your judgment of the Celebrity."

"Does the study of law eliminate humanity?" she asked, with a mock
curtsey. "The deliberate sentences are sometimes the unjust ones, and
men who are hung by weighed wisdom are often the innocent."