The Bluffton news. [volume] (Bluffton, Ohio) 1875-current, 1940-07-04
CHAPTER III

He'd have to clear out. He'd have
to clear out, now, tonight, before he
saw her again. John walked, rest
less, in long plunging strides, along
the rutted clay-shen road. The ex-
pertinent was less important than
what was certain to happen to him
If he remained at the cabin. He'd
fought that battle twice before, and
he had no intention of exposing him.
self to the necessity of fighting it
again.
But wasn't that necessity already
upon him? He'd wondered how he
would feel If, by chance, he should
meet her again. Chance, assisted
by Uncle John, had given him that
knowledge. He felt as he'd felt when
they parted six years ago. There
was something between them which
time and separation had not altered,
more vital than it had been three
years, six years ago, because they
were more mature, now, more emo
tionally aware.
Not that he hadn't been emotion
ally aware of her that summer she'd
spent at the cabin with Uncle John.
He should have cleared out then,
he told himself a trile grirnly, in
stead of prolonging what he had in
tended to be weekend visit into
q stay of three weeks.
He should have left before the
day she'd turned her ankle walking
with him through the woods and
he'd carried her to the cabin in his
arms. After that nothing could have
induced him to leave. He remem-
bered with a feeling of tenderness
for the innocent ardor of their re-
lationship which resentment could
not efface, the week which had fol-
lowed. He remembered saying
good-by to her at the station in
Machias, straining for last glimpse
of her face, young and defenseless
in the transient grief of parting,
tears glittering on her lashes, her
wide sweetly curved mouth trem-
bling in an effort to smile. "Ill
see you soon, John," she'd said,
clinging to his hand as they stood
together in the vestibule of the train.
And, sustained by his presence, too
much in love with her to reason or
question, Eyes, very soon," he'd re-
piled.
But he had not seen her again un-
til he'd gone with Uncle John to New
York for her debutante party. Her
mother had taken her abroad that
fall after her summer here. She'd
written to him at lengthening inter-
walls during the first year, from &C.
neva where she was in school, from
various points on the French Rivi-
era when her vacations permitted
opportunities for travel. He'd been
relieved when the letters stopped
coming, glad that he had been on a
canoe trip in Canada when, nearly
two years later, the cablegram an
nouncing her return to America had
arrived, glad, too, though he'd
watched the mail for weeks, that
she had not answered his formal
note of apology and explanation. 1t
had been easier, then, to close a
door in his mind, for reason, dur
ing long hours of logical if rebel
lious thought, had convinced him
that the door must be closed and
locked and the key thrown away.
The key? John turned, realizing
that he had reached the village.
Why had Uncle John made that
gesture? he wondered, walking
more slowly back toward the cabin.
He'd known, of course, of that young
attachment between himself and
Gay. 1t probably hadn't been diff
cult for Uncle John to read his
thoughts the morning after the party
in New York when he, John, had
insisted, stubbornly and not very
considerably, that they return to
Cambridge at once. And Uncle John
loved Gay. He had for her deeper
affection, perhaps, than for anyone
in the world except him.
But Uncle John should have fore
seen, he thought irritably, that MOTH
ing of lasting value could come of
that attachment. He was romantic,
idealistic, in the way of his genera
ton, but he was neither sentimental
nor impractical. He must have seen
that he, John, and Gabrielle Gra-
ham lived in different worlds, that
each would be stranger in the at
mosphere familiar to the other. Per-
haps though, the thought continued,
when you were dying, such things as
wealth or lack of it, the differences
in viewpoint which wealth engen-
dered, the distinctions and antago-
nisms it raised seemed relatively
unimportant. Uncle John had known
he hadn't lon- T. lye v-len thev'd