"Oh," she cried, with a little start, and, turning toward him, "they are not worth so much, really! I was thinking of Mr. Lancaster. He used to be so terribly ambitious; you know. Didn't you say you knew of him, in town?"
Wooton realized that he must needs be diplomatic. He called it diplomacy; some persons might have rudely termed it mendacity. The two are commonly confounded.
"Yes," he replied, "some artists that I knew used to mention his name occasionally." He paused an instant or two and then continued, impassively, "I seem to remember hearing someone say that he was engaged to some very rich girl."
Dorothy Ware smiled sadly. "I supposed he would be," she said, simply. She felt angry at herself for not feeling the news more deeply; yet it hardly seemed to touch her at all; it was just as if she had heard that one of her girl friends had married. She recalled Dick's impassioned, if soberly worded, farewell; she remembered her own words; she wondered how it was possible that the passing months could have changed her so that now she seemed almost indifferent as to young Lancaster's fortunes or misfortunes.
Wooton's exclamation of "Ah, there's Schandau!" broke in upon the train of her self-questioning thoughts. They walked over to the rail of the boat together, and looked out to where the roofs of summer-villas and hotels came peeping through the wooded banks of the river. As they stood thus she felt his right hand just touching her own left. Somehow, the blood came rushing into her face, and she took her hand away under pretense of fastening up her veil.
From the landing-stage they walked up to one of the hotels, where Wooton ordered a light repast. Miss Ware was in excellent spirits. The beauty of the day and the picturesqueness of the place, with its cozy villas tucked away against the hillside, its leafy lanes and its mountain shadows, filled her with the elixir of happiness. She chatted and laughed incessantly. She asked Wooton if they couldn't go for a walk into the woods. Walk, of course! No, she didn't want to drive; that was too much like poking along the boulevards at home in the States. She wanted to stroll up little foot-paths, into the heart of the wood, and gather flowers, and have the birds whistle to her! Didn't he remember that she was a country girl? She hadn't been in a real wood since she left Lincolnville, and did he suppose she was going to enjoy this one by halves?