“You have forgotten your preserver’s name, you ungrateful child!” Fair’s pale and tear-wet face suddenly grew rosy red, and she said quickly: “Oh, no, for I never knew his name. He did not tell me, and, of course, I did not like to ask him.” Mrs. Fielding cried out in dismay: “You did not find out his name, nor where he lives?” [Pg 33] [Pg 33] “No, mamma,” despondently. “But, of course, you told him your name?” pursued the mother. “Of course I did not. As he did not show interest enough in me to ask it,” Fair retorted hotly, for she resented bitterly, in secret, her preserver’s proud indifference as shown in the fact that he did not even care to know the name of her he had saved from a horrible death. Mrs. Fielding was perplexed and disappointed beyond expression. “Why, I really do not know what to think,” she exclaimed. “He must be the strangest young man that ever was born, not to take any more interest than that in such a lovely girl, and one whose life he had saved at the peril of his own. And I really hoped something would come of it. It was so much like novels I had read that I hoped it would end like a novel; but I fear it will always remain a mystery.” To Fair Fielding, as well as to her mother, the events of that day seemed most romantic; but she did not, like the ambitious woman, cherish any fancy that anything would “come of it.” The kindly carelessness of her preserver’s manner had[Pg 34] been too decided to foster anything like a hope that he had taken any interest in her beyond the humane one of saving her life. [Pg 34] Her young heart, fascinated by his heroism and his manly beauty, had gone out to him in a rush of tenderness. Pity, too, had helped to strengthen the flowery chain, for she felt that he had suffered severely from the hurt received in her behalf. It was according to the dictates of her woman’s nature to yearn over and to compassionate him for the pain he
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