"All right, Clover. Thank you. I am listening to Gorham. This cigar that I have here"—he removed it from his lips, and regarded it through contracted lids—"might have become sauerkraut by a little different process of handling." He smoked a minute in silence, then said: "Mildred has gone away, hasn’t she?"
"Yes; she has gone to spend a day or two with Helen Eames. Helen has been urging her all summer."
"I think I’ll go back with Gorham to-morrow," added Van Tassel briefly.
"Why, Jack!" Clover dropped her work and gazed at him.
"Yes, I’ll go back." The young man flipped the ash from his cigar off into the grass.
"Do you feel that you have seen the Fair?"
"Yes, too many Fairs." Jack smiled rather dolefully as he glanced up toward the blue eyes.
"I can’t urge you to stay," said Clover sadly.
"Oh, perhaps I’ll come back," remarked the other cheerfully, "when I get my second wind, as it were. The first supply has been about knocked out of me."
He laughed. "I feel a little like one of those angels on the side of the Transportation Building,—the sort you can pass under a door without touching their buttons, you know."
"Did you plan to go without saying good-by to Mildred?"
"No. I will run up to the Eameses this evening and kill two birds with one stone. I ought to say good-by to Miss Eames. She has been very kind to me. That is," looking up inquiringly, "if you and Gorham can spare me on your last evening. How is that?"
There was dew again in the violet eyes. "It does not seem right for me to be happy when you are not, Jack," Clover said, unconsciously clasping her hands together. "If I could only say something that would stay with you as a comfort! I am afraid to seem to preach when my own lot is what it is. You are plucky and have plenty of self-control, but I hope you will not try to lean only on your own strength. We can all have faith that, so long as we do right, the outcome will be the best thing for us, whatever it is."
"I’m not kicking," said Jack quietly, "but I am going away because I believe it is the best thing both for Mildred and me."
"No. It is rather sudden. I only took it to-day. I have staid here long enough to bring things the way I want them if it were on the cards. Now, I will do the next best thing."