Page:The Soft Side (New York, The Macmillan Company, 1900).djvu/124

116 big, sore, stupid monument of his irretrievable mistake. 'Did you write me more than once?' he finally asked.

'No—but once. But I thought it, I'm bound to say, an awfully good letter, and you took no notice of it, you know, whatever. You never returned me a word.'

'I know,' said Braddle, smoking hard and looking away; 'it reached me at Hawaii. It was, I dare say, as good a letter as such a letter could be. I remember—I remember: all right; thanks. But I couldn't answer it. I didn't like it, and yet I couldn't trust myself to tell you so in the right way. So I let it alone.'

'And we've therefore known nothing whatever about you.'

Braddle sat jogging his long foot. 'What is it you've wanted to know?'

The question made Chilver feel a little foolish. What was it, after all? 'Well, what had become of you, and that sort of thing. I supposed,' he added, 'that you might be feeling as you say, and there was a lot, in connection with you, of course I myself felt, for me to think about. I even hesitated a good deal to write to you at all, and I waited, you remember, don't you? till after my marriage. I don't know what your state of mind may be to-day, but you'll never, my dear chap, get a "rise" out of me. I bear you no grudge.'

His companion, at this, looked at him again. 'Do you mean for what I said?'

'What you said?'

'About her.'

'Oh no—I mean for the way you've treated us.'

'How do you know how I've treated you?' Braddle asked.

'Ah, I only pretend to speak of what I do know! Your not coming near us. You've been in the Sandwich Islands?' Chilver went on after a pause.

'Oh yes.'

'And in California?'

'Yes—all over the place.'