In the Quarter

``Such parents!'' sighed Ruth, nestling down beside her father and looking over her cup at Rex, who gravely nodded sympathy.

After breakfast, as Ruth stood waiting by the table where the fishing tackle lay, perfectly composed in manner, but unable to keep the color from her cheek and the sparkle of impatience from her eye, Gethryn thought he had seldom seen anything more charming.

A soft gray Tam crowned her pretty hair. A caped coat, fastened to the throat, hung over the short kilt skirt, and rough gaiters buttoned down over a wonderful little pair of hobnailed boots.

``I say! Ruth! what a stunner you are!'' cried he with enthusiasm. She turned to the rod case and began lifting and arranging the rods.

``Rex,'' she said, looking up brightly, ``I feel about sixteen today.''

``Or less, judging from your costume,'' said her mother. ``Schicksalsee isn't Rangely, you know. I only hope the good people in the little ducal court won't call you theatrical.''

``A theatrical stunner!'' mused Ruth, in her clearest tones. ``It is good to know how one strikes one's friends.''

``The disciplining of this young person is to be left to me,'' said the colonel. ``Daisy, everything else about you is all wrong, but your frock is all right.''

``That is simple and comprehensive and reassuring,'' murmured Ruth absently, as she bent over the fly-book with Gethryn.

After much consultation and many thoughtful glances at the bit of water which glittered and dashed through the narrow meadow in front of the house, they arranged the various colored lures and leaders, and standing up, looked at Colonel Dene, reading his novel.

``What? Oh! Come along, then!'' said he, on being made aware that he was waited for, and standing up also, he dropped the volume into his creel and lighted a cigar.

``Are you going to take that trash along, dear?'' asked his daughter.

``What trash? The work of fiction? That's literature, as the gentleman said about Dante.''

``Rex,'' said Mrs Dene, buttoning the colonel's coat over his snowy collar, ``I put this expedition into your hands. Take care of these two children.''

She stood and watched them until they passed the turn beyond the bridge. Mr Blumenthal watched them too, from behind the curtains in his room. His leer went from one to the other, but always returned and rested on Rex. Then, as there was a mountain chill in the morning air, he crawled back into bed, hauling his night cap over his generous ears and rolling himself in a cocoon of featherbeds, until he should emerge about noon, like some sleek, fat moth.

The anglers walked briskly up the wooded road, chatting and laughing, with now and then a sage and critical glance at the water, of which they caught many glimpses through the trees. Gethryn and Ruth were soon far ahead. The colonel sauntered along, switching leaves with his rod and indulging in bursts of Parisian melody.

``Papa,'' called Ruth, looking back, ``does your hip trouble you today, or are you only lazy?''

``Trot along, little girl; I'll be there before you are,'' said the colonel airily, and stopped to replace the wild hyacinth in his coat by a prim little pink and white daisy. Then he lighted a fresh cigar and started on, but their voices were already growing faint in the distance. Observing this, he stopped and looked up and down the road. No one was in sight. He sat down on the bank with his hand on his hip. His face changed from a frown to an expression of sharp pain. In five minutes he had grown from a fresh elderly man into an old man, his face drawn and gray, but he only muttered ``the devil!'' and sat still. A big bronze-winged beetle whizzed past him, z–z–ip! ``like a bullet,'' he thought, and pressed both hands now on his hip. ``Twenty-five years ago – pshaw! I'm not so old as that!'' But it was twenty-five years ago when the blue-capped troopers, bursting in to the rescue, found the dandy ``–th,'' scorched and rent and blackened, still reeling beneath a rag crowned with a gilt eagle. The exquisite befeathered and gold laced ``–th.'' But the shells have rained for hours among the ``Dandies'' – and some are dead, and some are wishing for death, like that youngster lying there with the shattered hip.

Colonel Dene rose up presently and relighted his cigar; then he flicked some dust from the new tweeds, picked a stem of wild hyacinth, and began to whistle. ``Pshaw! I'm not so old as all that!'' he murmured, sauntering along the pleasant wood-road. Before long he came in sight of Ruth and Gethryn, who were waiting. But he only waved them on, laughing.

``Papa always says that old wound of his does not hurt him, but it does. I know it does,'' said Ruth.

Rex noted what tones of tenderness there were in her cool, clear voice. He did not answer, for he could only agree with her, and what could be the use of that?

They strolled on in silence, up the fragrant forest road. Great glittering dragonflies drifted along the river bank, or hung quivering above pools. Clouds of lazy sulphur butterflies swarmed and floated, eddying up from the road in front of them and settling down again in their wake like golden dust. A fox stole across the path, but Gethryn did not see him. The mesh of his landing net was caught just then in a little gold clasp that he wore on his breast.

``How quaint!'' cried Ruth; ``let me help you; there! One would think you were a French legitimist, with your fleur-de-lis.''

``Thank you'' – was all he answered, and turned away, as he felt the blood burn his face. But Ruth was walking lightly on and had not noticed. The fleur-de-lis, however, reminded her of something she had to say, and she began again, presently –

``You left Paris rather suddenly, did you not, Rex?''

This time he colored furiously, and Ruth, turning to him, saw it. She flushed too, fearing to have made she knew not what blunder, but she went on seriously, not pausing for his answer:

``The year before, that is three years ago now, we waited in Italy, as we had promised to do, for you to join us. But you never even wrote to say why you did not come. And you haven't explained it yet, Rex.''

Gethryn grew pale. This was what he had been expecting. He knew it would have to come; in fact he had wished for nothing more than an opportunity for making all the amends that were possible under the circumstances. But the possible amends were very, very inadequate at best, and now that the opportunity was here, his courage failed, and he would have shirked it if he could. Besides, for the last five minutes, Ruth had been innocently stirring memories that made his heart beat heavily.

And now she was waiting for her answer. He glanced at the clear profile as she walked beside him. Her eyes were raised a little; they seemed to be idly following the windings of a path that went up the opposite mountainside; her lips rested one upon the other in quiet curves. He thought he had never seen such a pure, proud looking girl. All the chivalry of a generous and imaginative man brought him to her feet.

``I cannot explain. But I ask your forgiveness. Will you grant it? I won't forgive myself!''

She turned instantly and gave him her hand, not smiling, but her eyes were very gentle. They walked on a while in silence, then Rex said:

``Ever since I came, I have been trying to find courage to ask pardon for that unpardonable conduct, but when I looked in your dear mother's face, I felt myself such a brute that I was only fit to hold my tongue. And I believed,'' he added, after a pause, ``that she would forgive me too. She was always better to me than I deserved.''

``Yes,'' said Ruth.

``And you also are too good to me,'' he continued, ``in giving me this chance to ask your pardon.'' His voice took on the old caressing tone in which he used to make peace after their boy and girl tiffs. ``I knew very well that with you I should have a stricter account to settle than with your mother,'' he said, smiling.

``Yes,'' said Ruth again. And then with a little effort and a slight flush she added:

``I don't think it is good for men when too many excuses are made for them. Do you?''

``No, I do not,'' answered Rex, and thought, if all women were like this one, how much easier it would be for men to lead a good life! His heart stopped its heavy beating. The memories which he had been fighting for two years faded away once more; his spirits rose, and he felt like a boy as he kept step with Ruth along the path which had now turned and ran close beside the stream.

``Now tell me something of your travels,'' said Ruth. ``You have been in the East.''

``Yes, in Japan. But first I stopped a while in India with some British officers, nice fellows. There was some pheasant shooting.''

``Pheasants! No tigers?''

``One tiger.''

``You shot him! Oh! tell me about it!''

``No, I only saw him.''

``Where?''

``In a jungle.''

``Did you fire?''

``No, for he was already dead, and the odor which pervaded his resting place made me hurry away as fast as if he had been alive.''

``You are a provoking boy!''

Rex laughed. ``I did shoot a cheetah in China.''

``A dead one?''