He laughed, and all that Westover could say was, "Then you're still
responsible for the result." But this no longer appeared so true to him.




XXXVIII.

It was not a condition of Westover's welcome at Lion's Head that he
should seem peculiarly the friend of Jeff Durgin, but he could not help
making it so, and he began to overact the part as soon as he met Jeff's
mother. He had to speak of him in thanking her for remembering his wish
to paint Lion's Head in the winter, and he had to tell her of Jeff's
thoughtfulness during the past fortnight; he had to say that he did not
believe he should ever have got away if it had not been for him. This was
true; Durgin had even come in from Cambridge to see him off on the train;
he behaved as if the incident with Lynde and all their talk about it had
cemented the friendship between Westover and himself, and he could not be
too devoted. It now came out that he had written home all about Westover,
and made his mother put up a stove in the painter's old room, so that he
should have the instant use of it when he arrived.

It was an air-tight wood-stove, and it filled the chamber with a heat in
which Westover drowsed as soon as he entered it. He threw himself on the
bed, and slept away the fatigue of his railroad journey and the cold of
his drive with Jombateeste from the station. His nap was long, and he
woke from it in a pleasant languor, with the dream-clouds still hanging
in his brain. He opened the damper of his stove, and set it roaring
again; then he pulled down the upper sash of his window and looked out on
a world whose elements of wood and snow and stone he tried to