"We think this America of ours is so young," he laughed. "And here we are living on soil that has been consecrated by brave sacrifices of centuries ago! Not so bad."
Driving homeward their backs were turned to the little ominous pile of clouds darkening a corner of the blue sky. At a spot where the road ran close to the edge of the lake, under a wide-spreading maple tree, they laid out B'lindy's lunch.
"Now I'll tell him I'm going," Nancy vowed to herself, with a little unaccountable fluttering.
He was on his knees before the picnic box. She could not see his face.
"Peter!" She had not realized how hard it was going to be to say it. "I'm--going--away! Really."
She had expected that he would be startled--show real consternation. Her going _must_ make a difference in his life at Freedom--there were no other young people to take her place.
He was surprised; he held a jelly sandwich suspended for a moment, as though waiting for her to say something more. Then he laid it down on a paper plate.
Nancy could not know that he was not really concerned as to whether she preferred white meat or dark meat, that his indifference was, indeed, covering a moment's inability to express his real feelings. She was suddenly angry--angry at herself more than at Peter Hyde!
"Of course I shall hate to go, I have grown very fond of Aunt Sabrina and Aunt Milly and B'lindy--and dear little Nonie. It's hardest to leave her!"
"They'll miss you. You've changed Happy House. And Nonie's a different child."
"He's very careful not to say he'll miss me," thought Nancy with childish pique. Then, aloud: "But I can't stay at Happy House forever. I only planned to spend three weeks there at the most and it's been six. And it seems as though I'd been there ages! I suppose one day on the Islands is like a week in the cities, where you live right next to people and never really touch their lives. However, it's in the rush of the cities I belong; I should _die_ if I had to stay here!" She wanted him to understand that the attractions of Happy House could not hold her; she wanted to punish him for that abstraction that she had thought indifference.
"Judson's will be a dull hole without you at Happy House, Nancy," Peter put in, gravely.