If a woman had once thrown him
overboard she must take the consequences, and stand by them. When,
however, she showed no inclination to revert to the past, and shunned him
more than he shunned her, Gregory softened.
"You must let me call you Em still, and be like a brother to you till I
go," he said; and Em thanked him so humbly that he wished she hadn't. It
wasn't so easy after that to think himself an injured man.
On that morning he stood some time in the doorway switching his whip, and
moving rather restlessly from one leg to the other.
"I think I'll just take a walk up to the camps and see how your birds are
getting on. Now Waldo's gone you've no one to see after things. Nice
morning, isn't it?" Then he added suddenly, "I'll just go round to the
house and get a drink of water first;" and somewhat awkwardly walked off.
He might have found water in the kitchen, but he never glanced toward the
buckets. In the front room a monkey and two tumblers stood on the centre-
table; but he merely looked round, peeped into the parlour, looked round
again, and then walked out at the front door, and found himself again at
the storeroom without having satisfied his thirst. "Awfully nice morning
this," he said, trying to pose himself in a graceful and indifferent
attitude against the door. "It isn't hot and it isn't cold.
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