Fletcher was a pretty fine fellow, and I had come to like him;
but I soon found myself wondering what he had ever done to
deserve winning such a girl as Helen Bond. She was what I should
describe as the ideal type of "new" woman,--tall and athletic,
yet without any affectation of mannishness. The very first
thought that struck me was the incongruousness of a girl of her
type suffering from an attack of "nerves," and I felt sure it
must be as Craig had said, that she was concealing a secret that
was having a terrible effect on her. A casual glance might not
have betrayed the true state of her feelings, for her dark hair
and large brown eyes and the tan of many suns on her face and
arms betokened anything but the neurasthenic. One felt
instinctively that she was, with all her athletic grace,
primarily a womanly woman.
The sun sinking toward the hills across the bay softened the
brown of her skin and, as I observed by watching her closely,
served partially to conceal the nervousness which was wholly
unnatural in a girl of such poise. When she smiled there was a
false note in it; it was forced and it was sufficiently evident
to me that she was going through a mental hell of conflicting
emotions that would have killed a woman of less self-control.
I felt that I would like to be in Fletcher's shoes--doubly so
when, at Kennedy's request, he withdrew, leaving me to witness
the torture of a woman of such fine sensibilities, already hunted
remorselessly by her own thoughts.
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