Hewson silently picked his steps back through the intervening events to
the drolling at breakfast, and with some misgiving took his stand in the
declaration, "You mean the waitress at the inn?"

"Yes!" cried the girl, with a gentle indignation, which was so dear to
the young man that he would have given anything to believe that it veiled
a measure of sympathy for himself as well as for the waitress. "We went
in there last night when we arrived, for some pins--Mrs. Rock had had her
dress stepped on, getting out of the car--and that girl brought them. I
never saw such a sad face. And she was very nice; she had no more manners
than a cow."

Miss Hernshaw added the last sentence as if it followed, and in his poor
masculine pride of sequence Hewson wanted to ask if that were why she was
so nice; but he obeyed a better instinct in saying, "Yes, there's a whole
tragedy in it. I wonder if it's potential or actual." He somehow felt
safe in being so metaphysical.

"Does it make any difference?" Miss Hernshaw demanded, whirling her face
round, and fixing him with eyes of beautiful fierceness. "Tragedy is
tragedy, whether you have lived it or not, isn't it? And sometimes it's
all the more tragical if you have it still to live: you've got it before
you! I don't see how any one can look at that girl's face and laugh at
her. I should never forgive any one who did."

"Then I'm glad I didn't do any of the laughing," said Hewson, willing to
relieve himself from the strain of this high mood, and yet anxious not to
fall too far below it. "Perhaps I should, though, if I hadn't been the
victim of it in some degree."