'I hope not; I don't know,' Ransom said, laughing.
Then he took a few steps, mentioned his name, recalled his having met her at Miss Birdseye's, ever so long before (nearly two years), and expressed the hope that she had not forgotten that.
She thought it over a little—she was evidently addicted neither to empty phrases nor to unconsidered assertions. 'I presume you mean that night Miss Tarrant launched out so.'
'That very night. We had a very interesting conversation.'
'Well, I remember I lost a good deal,' said Doctor Prance.
'Well, I don't know; I have an idea you made it up in other ways,' Ransom returned, laughing still.
He saw her bright little eyes engage with his own. Staying, apparently, in the village, she had come out, bare- headed, for an evening walk, and if it had been possible to imagine Doctor Prance bored and in want of recreation, the way she lingered there as if she were quite willing to have another talk might have suggested to Basil Ransom this condition. 'Why, don't you consider her career very remarkable?'
'Oh yes; everything is remarkable nowadays; we live in an age of wonders!' the young man replied, much amused to find himself discussing the object of his adoration in this casual way, in the dark, on a lonely country- road, with a short-haired female physician. It was astonishing how quickly Doctor Prance and he had made friends again. 'I suppose, by the way, you know Miss Tarrant and Miss Chancellor are staying down here?' he went on.
'Well, yes, I suppose I know it. I am visiting Miss Chancellor,' the dry little woman added.
'Oh indeed? I am delighted to hear it!' Ransom exclaimed, feeling that he might have a friend in the camp. 'Then you can inform me where those ladies have their house.'
'Yes, I guess I can tell it in the dark. I will show you round now, if you like.'
'I shall be glad to see it, though I am not sure I shall go in immediately. I must reconnoitre a little first. That makes me so very happy to have met you. I think it's very wonderful—your knowing me.'
Doctor Prance did not repudiate this compliment, but she presently observed: 'You didn't pass out of my mind entirely, because I have heard about you since, from Miss Birdseye.'
'Ah yes, I saw her in the spring. I hope she is in health and happiness.'
'She is always in happiness, but she can't be said to be in health. She is very weak; she is failing.'
'I am very sorry for that.'
'She is also visiting Miss Chancellor,' Doctor Prance observed, after a pause which was an illustration of an appearance she had of thinking that certain things didn't at all imply some others.
'Why, my cousin has got all the distinguished women!' Basil Ransom exclaimed.
'Is Miss Chancellor your cousin? There isn't much family resemblance. Miss Birdseye came down for the benefit of the country air, and I came down to see if I could help her to get some good from it. She wouldn't much, if she were left to herself. Miss Birdseye has a very fine character, but she hasn't much idea of hygiene.' Doctor Prance was evidently more and more disposed to be chatty. Ransom appreciated this fact, and said he hoped she, too, was getting some good from the country-air—he was afraid she was very much confined to her profession, in Boston; to which she replied—'Well, I was just taking a little exercise along the road. I presume you don't realise what it is to be one of four ladies grouped together in a small frame-house.'
Ransom remembered how he had liked her before, and he felt that, as the phrase was, he was going to like her again. He wanted to express his good-will to her, and would greatly have enjoyed being at liberty to offer her a cigar. He didn't know what to offer her or what to do, unless he should invite her to sit with him on a fence. He did realise perfectly what the situation in the small frame-house must be, and entered with instant sympathy into the feelings which had led Doctor Prance to detach herself from the circle and wander forth under the constellations, all of which he was sure she knew. He asked her permission to accompany her on her walk, but she said she was not going much further in that direction; she was going to turn round. He turned round with her, and they went back together to the village, in which he at last began to discover a certain consistency, signs of habitation, houses disposed with a rough resemblance to a plan. The road wandered among them with a kind of accommodating sinuosity, and there were even cross-streets, and an oil-lamp on a corner, and here and there the small sign of a closed shop, with an indistinctly countrified lettering. There were lights now in the windows of some of the houses, and Doctor Prance mentioned to her companion several of the inhabitants of the little town, who appeared all to rejoice in the prefix of captain. They were retired shipmasters; there was quite a little nest of these worthies, two or three of whom might be seen lingering in their dim doorways, as if they were conscious of a want of encouragement to sit up, and yet remembered the nights in far-away waters when they would not have thought of turning in at all. Marmion called itself a town, but it was a good deal shrunken since the decline in the shipbuilding interest; it turned out a good many vessels every year, in the palmy days, before the war. There were shipyards still, where you could almost pick up the old shavings, the old nails and rivets, but they were grass-grown now, and the water lapped them without anything to interfere. There was a kind of arm of the sea put in; it went up some way, it wasn't the real sea, but very quiet, like a river; that was more attractive to some. Doctor Prance didn't say the place was picturesque, or quaint, or weird; but he could see that was what she meant when she said it was mouldering away. Even under the mantle of night he himself gathered the impression that it had had a larger life, seen better days. Doctor Prance made no remark designed to elicit from him an account of his motives in coming to Marmion; she asked him neither when he had arrived nor how long he intended to stay. His allusion to his cousinship with Miss Chancellor might have served to her mind as a reason; yet, on the other hand, it would have been open to her to wonder why, if he had come to see the young ladies from Charles Street, he was not in more of a hurry to present himself. It was plain Doctor Prance didn't go into that kind of analysis. If Ransom had complained to her of a sore throat she would have inquired with precision about his symptoms; but she was incapable of asking him any question with a social bearing. Sociably enough, however, they continued to wander through the principal street of the little town, darkened in places by immense old elms, which made a blackness overhead. There was a salt smell in the air, as if they were nearer the water; Doctor Prance said that Olive's house was at the other end.
'I shall take it as a kindness if, for this evening, you don't mention that you have happened to meet me,' Ransom remarked, after a little. He had changed his mind about giving notice.
'Well, I wouldn't,' his companion replied; as if she didn't need any caution in regard to making vain statements.
'I want to keep my arrival a little surprise for to-morrow. It will be a great pleasure to me to see Miss Birdseye,' he went on, rather hypocritically, as if that at bottom had been to his mind the main attraction of
