Page:Hard-pan; a story of bonanza fortunes (IA hardpanbonanza00bonnrich).pdf/126

114 "Oh, not in this case. Hope as much as you like."

"You 're very cheering," she answered; "but I don't see how you can be so sure."

"It seems to me you 're very pessimistic—especially for a young woman who has just found a drawerful of paying stock."

His manner in making this remark was so impregnated with angry bitterness that Viola, chilled and repelled, made no response. In silence they walked onward till a turn in the street brought them in sight of the house.

At the gate she said rather timidly:

"Would you like to come in?"

He had been carrying the basket, and now found the depositing of it in a place of safety an excuse to enter; for even in his present state of morose ill humor he could not forego the pleasure of a few more moments of her society.

In the cold, half-furnished house their foot-steps echoed with a strangely solitary effect. She preceded him into the parlor, and moved about with the confident tread of the chatelaine, pulling up the blinds, putting the basket out of sight, and laying aside her hat and gloves. There were some thin flowered muslin curtains hanging over the bay-window, and she arranged the folds of these with deft, proprietary touches, and then stepped back and studied the effect.