"
"So is every other place. You had better remain till the end of the
season."
"It's all one season to me. I want to see my office-slate. I wouldn't
have stayed so long for any one but her."
"Well, then, good-bye," Ransom said. "I shall always remember our little
expeditions. And I wish you every professional distinction."
"That's why I want to go back," Doctor Prance replied, with her flat,
limited manner. He kept her a moment; he wanted to ask her about Verena.
While he was hesitating how to form his question she remarked, evidently
wishing to leave him a little memento of her sympathy, "Well, I hope you
will be able to follow up your views."
"My views, Miss Prance? I am sure I have never mentioned them to you!"
Then Ransom added, "How is Miss Tarrant to-day? is she more calm?"
"Oh no, she isn't calm at all," Doctor Prance answered, very definitely.
"Do you mean she's excited, emotional?"
"Well, she doesn't talk, she's perfectly still, and so is Miss
Chancellor. They're as still as two watchers--they don't speak. But you
can hear the silence vibrate."
"Vibrate?"
"Well, they are very nervous."
Ransom was confident, as I say, yet the effort that he made to extract a
good omen from this characterisation of the two ladies at the cottage
was not altogether successful. He would have liked to ask Doctor Prance
whether she didn't think he might count on Verena in the end; but he was
too shy for this, the subject of his relations with Miss Tarrant never
yet having been touched upon between them; and, besides, he didn't care
to hear himself put a question which was more or less an implication of
a doubt.
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