“Utterly contemptible,” snapped Mr. Cameron, flicking the ashes from his cigar onto the table with a prodigal gesture, only to brush them onto an envelope with the afterthought of an exact nature.
“At what time do you ride this afternoon?” her cousin called after her.
“Thanks,” replied Jean, without turning, “but I shall not be able to ride this afternoon, I am intending to spend the time in making a pair of curtains for this window. I do not like the view of the hoist.”
Iverach’s face fell, for he was leaving Quentin the next day, and he had counted much upon this last interview. “Can’t the curtains wait until to-morrow?” he remonstrated.
“No, they must be finished at once,” replied Jean with decision.
“Why this burst of domestic energy?” queried Mr. Cameron. “You know that you have not taken a needle in your hand since you have been in the camp.”
“I intend to change my habits in many ways,” Jean responded, pressing her lips together firmly.
“I beg of you not to change at all,” said Iverach. “It is impossible to improve a perfect person. However, since you are in the domestic mood, I wonder if you would take pity on a helpless bachelor and take a stitch in my riding-gloves for me?”
“Riding-gloves are a luxury, while curtains are a necessity,” replied Jean firmly. “However, if you will give the gloves to me, I will see that our Chinaman mends them. There is nothing that he cannot do.”
For some minutes after Jean had left the room, her cousin contemplated the end of his cigar. It was hard for him to twist her expressions into denoting a mood favorable to his complacency, so he spent an unpleasant half hour. At last, giving up all hope of her reappearance, he moodily set forth alone on his ride. He realized that in the Western setting he did not appeal to Jean Cameron, and only hoped that when she should return to the East, his deficiencies would be less apparent, while his advantages would show more clearly. He therefore concluded to defer putting his fate to the touch until circumstances should prove more propitious.
The curtains took some time in the making. Jean sewed them with a preoccupied elaboration such as she was not accustomed to bestow upon such tasks. She had been startled by the effect of her cousin’s words upon her, and now stared at the hem of the curtains with a slight frown. She had thought her interest in Stephen to be purely abstract and impersonal, and yet it was not pleasant to think of the person in whom she was even abstractly interested as having been concerned in a dubious financial transaction. It certainly added interest to the problem of his regeneration; but nevertheless it abated the zeal for solving that problem, by making it seem not worth while.