Page:Randall Parrish - The Red Mist.djvu/115

 Rh interest—considering me a mere boy to be laughed at and forgotten. Nothing about me at present served to even remind her of what I had once been. I was only a stranger entering into her life for the first time. This expression was in the eyes surveying me as I ate—quiet, earnest eyes, utterly devoid of suspicion. I was so busy with these thoughts that she broke the silence.

"You are a very young man," she said simply.

"Not seriously so," I answered, rather inclined to resent the charge. "I am twenty-four."

"Really! Why that is not so bad. How old am I?"

I could have told her to the day, but chose to venture a guess.

"Seventeen."

"A year and a half too young. You are no better guesser than I am. You look like a boy I used to know—only his eyes were darker, and he had long hair."

"Indeed!" I caught my breath quickly, yet held my eyes firm. "Someone living about here?"

"Yes; his name was Wyatt. I never knew him very well, only you recalled him to memory in some way. He and his mother went South when the war first broke out. Where was your home?"

"In Burlington, Vermont."