“Did you consider the length of our walk when you fell in with my desire?” he asked presently.
“I like a long walk in pleasant weather; I never tire of walking.”
“You have found the essentials of a good pedestrian,--health and strength.”
“Yes; if everybody were like me, all your skill would be thrown away,--I am never ill.”
“Apparently there is no reason why you should be, with common-sense to back your blessings. If common-sense could be bought at the drug-store, I should be rid of a great many patients.”
“That reminds me of a snatch of conversation I once overheard between my mother and a doctor’s wife. I am reminded of it because the spirit of your meaning is diametrically opposed to her own. After some talk my mother asked, ‘And how is the doctor?’ ‘Oh,’ replied the visitor, with a long sigh, ‘he’s well enough in body, but he’s blue, terribly blue; everybody is so well, you know.’”
“Her sentiment was more human than humane,” laughed Kemp. He was glad to see that she had roused herself from her sad musings; but a certain set purpose he had formed robbed him now of his former lightness of manner.
He was about to broach a subject that required delicate handling; but an intuitive knowledge of the womanly character of the young girl aided him much. It was not so much what he had seen her do as what he knew she was, that led him to begin his recital.
“We have a good many blocks before us yet,” he said, “and I am going to tell you a little story. Why don’t you take the full benefit of my arm? There,” he proceeded, drawing her hand farther through his arm, “now you feel more like a big girl than like a bit of thistledown. If I get tiresome, just call ‘time,’ will you?”
“All right,” she laughed. She was beginning to meet halfway this matter-of-fact, unadorned, friendly manner of his; and when she did meet it, she felt a comfortable security in it. From the beginning to the end of his short narrative he looked straight ahead.