Cynthia came back in time to go into the dining-room and see that all was in order there for supper before the door opened.  The waitresses knew that she had been out riding, as they called it, with Jeff Durgin; the fact had spread electrically to them where they sat in a shady angle of the hotel listening to one who read a novel aloud, and skipped all but the most exciting love parts.  They conjectured that the pair had gone to Lovewell, but they knew nothing more, and the subtlest of them would not have found reason for further conjecture in Cynthia’s behavior, when she came in and scanned the tables and the girls’ dresses and hair, where they stood ranged against the wall.  She was neither whiter nor redder than usual, and her nerves and her tones were under as good control as a girl’s ever are after she has been out riding with a fellow.  It was not such a great thing, anyway, to ride with Jeff Durgin.  First and last, nearly all the young lady boarders had been out with him, upon one errand or another to Lovewell.

After supper, when the girls had gone over to their rooms in the helps’ quarters, and the guests had gathered in the wide, low office, in the light of the fire kindled on the hearth to break the evening chill, Jeff joined Cynthia in her inspection of the dining-room.  She always gave it a last look, to see that it was in perfect order for breakfast, before she went home for the night.  Jeff went home with her; he was impatient of her duties, but he was in no hurry when they stole out of the side door together under the stars, and began to stray sidelong down the hill over the dewless grass.

He lingered more and more as they drew near her father’s house, in the abandon of a man’s love.  He wished to give himself solely up to it, to think and to talk of nothing else, after a man’s fashion.  But a woman’s love is no such mere delight.  It is serious, practical.  For her it is all future, and she cannot give herself wholly up to any present moment of it, as a man does.

“Now, Jeff,” she said, after a certain number of partings, in which she had apparently kept his duty clearly in mind, “you had better go home and tell your mother.”

“Oh, there’s time enough for that,” he began.

“I want you to tell her right away, or there won’t be anything to tell.”

“Is that so?” he joked back.  “Well, if I must, I must, I suppose.  But I didn’t think you’d take the whip-hand so soon, Cynthia.”

“Oh, I don’t ever want to take the whip-hand with you, Jeff.  Don’t make me!”

“Well, I won’t, then.  But what are you in such a hurry to have mother know for?  She’s not going to object.  And if she does—­”

“It isn’t that,” said the girl, quickly.  “If I had to go round a single day with your mother hiding this from her, I should begin to hate you.  I couldn’t bear the concealment.  I shall tell father as soon as I go in.”

“Oh, your father ’ll be all right, of course.”