"I am determined Turner shall not miss this opportunity. I think, if it wasn't for me, Mr. Oakley, he'd give up most everything he wants to do, or has set his heart on."
"He's lucky to have you, then. Most men need looking after."
"I'm sure I do," observed the little artist, with commendable meekness. He was keenly alive to his own shortcomings. "I'd never get any sort of prices for my work if she didn't take a hand in the bargaining."
"Some one has to be mercenary," said Ruth, apologetically. "It's all very well to go around with your head in the clouds, but it don't pay."
There was a long pause, which a cricket improved to make itself heard above the sweep of the night wind through the tree-tops. Then Ruth said: "I saw Miss Emory to-day. She asked about you."
Mrs. Joyce and her husband had taken a passionate interest in Oakley's love affair, and divined the utter wreck of his hopes.
"Did she? I saw her at the Rink, too, but of course not to speak with."
Turner Joyce trod gently but encouragingly on his wife's foot. He felt that Oakley would be none the worse for a little cheer, and he had unbounded faith in his wife's delicacy and tact. She was just the person for such a message.
"She seemed--that is, I gathered from what she said, and it wasn't so much what she said as what she didn't say--"
Dan laughed outright, and Joyce joined in with a panic-stricken chuckle. Ruth was making as bad a botch of the business as he could have made.
"I am not at all sensitive," said Dan, with sudden candor. "I have admired her immensely; I do still, for the matter of that."
"But I think she looks at it differently now."
Oakley shook his head. "No, she doesn't. There's just one way she can look at it."
"Women are always changing their minds," persisted Ruth. It occurred to her that Constance had been at her worst in her relation with Oakley. If she cared a scrap for him, why hadn't she stood by him when he needed it most? The little artist blinked tenderly at his wife. He was lost in admiration at her courage. He would not have dared to give their friend this comfort.
The conversation languished. They heard the strains of the band when the meeting at the Rink broke up, and the voices of the people on the street, and then there was silence again.