"I have something--very awkward--to say to you, Wallie."
The harried expression which was becoming chronic leaped into his eyes at the introduction, as he asked himself what now might be portending.
"It's rather indelicate to discuss with a gentleman," she continued, braiding her fingers.
Wallie was alarmed but, anxious to set her at her ease, he said encouragingly: "You can talk as freely to me as if I were your--father."
He had not had time to visualize himself as Aunt Lizzie's father when she went on in a short-breathed fashion: "I fear that I shall have to leave you, Wallie, as soon as possible."
Wallie's wonder grew, but he said nothing.
"I think--I fear--I believe," she stammered, "that Mr. Hicks is of a very ardent temperament."
Wallie could not have spoken now had he wanted to.
"Since yesterday I have found him looking at me frequently in a peculiar manner. Last night he stared at me with his burning eyes until I could feel his hypnotic influence. I hope--I trust you will believe I have not given him any encouragement?"
Wallie's jaw, which had fallen, prevented him from reassuring her that he believed her blameless.
"So far, the tongue of scandal has never laid hands on me," she declared, mixing her metaphors in her agitation, "but I feel that it is a risk I should not take to travel about the country with a company of men and only an unmarried woman in the party."
Wallie managed to mumble: "You are as safe here as if you were in a convent, Aunt Lizzie."
It would have seemed from her expression that she preferred not to think so, however.
"You understand how I feel, don't you?" she pleaded.
"Perfectly! Perfectly!" Wallie replied, too dazed to make any other answer. He would have been only a little less astounded if the old lady had announced her intention of opening a dance-hall upon her return to Prouty.
Aunt Lizzie's desertion, and for such a reason, was the last thing he had anticipated. It seemed like the final straw laid upon a back already breaking. He watched her toddle away, and sat down again gloomily.
At the supply-wagon Mr. Hicks was putting the food away, commenting profanely upon the flies, the heat, the tardiness of Mr. Stott, the injustice of things in general, and in particular the sordid necessity which obliged him to occupy this humble position when he was so eminently fitted to fill a higher one.
He threw a stick at a "camp-robber" that had flown down and taken a pick at a plate on a stump which contained the lunch he had saved for Mr. Stott, and his expression was so diabolic that it was the first time for many days that he had looked natural.