"Hail!" cried Allan, waving cap and pipe together. "O ye idle women!"
"But we've been reading," explained Miss Rodman.
He picked up the _Journal of Folklore_ and flung it down again. "Worse yet!" he insisted. "You ought to be tramping. Come, let's go over to the Pines."
"Done, and despatched to an ungrateful government. I'm going to strike work for two days, to celebrate; then we begin triangulations on the north side of the lake. Well, aren't you coming?"
He put out his hand and swung Miss Rodman to her feet. Olivia had risen without assistance and was looking around for her hat. Allan handed it to her.
"I have some letters to write," said Miss Rodman. "I believe I won't go."
The geologist's face expressed polite regret. Olivia was busied with her hat-pins.
"But Miss Lane may go," continued her aunt. "You might take Dr. Allan over in the canoe, Olivia. That would save time."
The girl nodded, outwardly demure, inwardly dancing toward that bright, wave-thrown shell. "Very well," she said, "if Mr. Allan will trust himself again to the Water-Witch."
"Either of us could swim ashore with the Water-Witch in our teeth," laughed the geologist. "Come ahead!"
They started down the steep, shadowy path to the lake, the two tall, lithe figures swaying away from each other, toward each other, as they wound in and out among the trees.
Miss Rodman felt a trifle uncomfortable. She had not been altogether honest when Olivia asked her if Mr. Allan knew about her eyes. In fact she realized that she had been rather dishonest. She had indeed told the geologist--what he might have guessed for himself--that Miss Lane's eyes gave her serious trouble, and that she had been forbidden to use them. But she had not told him that Olivia was going blind. It was obvious that he liked the girl, and Miss Rodman shrank from letting the tragic shadow of Olivia's future darken these summer months unnecessarily. She recognized instinctively that the geologist's attitude toward her ward might be altered if he were conscious of the coming catastrophe. She wanted--yes, she owned to herself that she wanted--to have Elbridge Allan so deeply in love with Olivia that even if the worst came true he would but love her the better for her blindness. But to tell him prematurely might have spoiled everything. So reasoned Miss Rodman, Ph.D.