show him
only the sisterly benignity that he knew so well. She questioned him
sweetly about his voyage, his health, his relatives--his only near
relative was a sister who taught in a college--and about their mutual
friends and his work. To all he replied carefully and calmly, though
looking at her delightedly while he spoke. He had a very deliberate,
even way of speaking, and in certain words so broadened the a's that,
almost doubled in length by this treatment, they sounded like little
bleats. His 'yes' was on two notes and became a dissyllable.

After he had answered all her questions he took up the thread himself.
He had tactfully relinquished her hand at a certain moment in her talk.
Althea well remembered his sensitiveness to any slightest mood in
herself; he was wonderfully imaginative when it came to any human
relation. He did not wait for her to feel consciously that it was not
quite fitting that her hand should be held for so long.

'This is a nice old place you've got, Althea,' he said, looking about.
'Homelike and welcoming. I liked the look of it as I drove up. Have you
a lot of English people with you?'

'Only one; Miss Buckston, you know. Aunt Julia and the girls are here,
and Herbert Vaughan, their friend. You know Herbert Vaughan; such a nice
young creature; his mother is a Bostonian.'

'I know about him; I don't know him,' said Franklin, who indeed, as she
reflected, would not be likely to have met the fashionable Herbert. 'And
where is that attractive new friend of yours you wrote to me about--the
one you took care of in Paris--the Scotch lady?'

'Helen Buchanan? She is coming; she is in Scotland now.'

'Oh, she's coming. I am to see her, I hope.'

'You are to see everybody, dear Franklin,' said Althea, smiling upon
him. 'You are to stay, you know, for as long as you will.'

'That's sweet of you, Althea.' He looked at her. Her kindness still
buoyed him above his wonted level. He had never allowed himself to
become utterly hopeless, yet he had become almost resigned to hope
deferred; a pressing, present hope grew in him now. 'But it's ambiguous,
you know,' he went on, smiling back. 'If I'm to stay as long as I will,
I'm never to leave you, you know.'

Hope was becoming to Franklin. Althea felt herself colouring a little
under his eyes. 'You still feel that?' she said rather feebly.

'I'll always feel that.'

'It's very wonderful of you, Franklin. It makes me, sometimes, feel
guilty, as thou