§ 4
Wednesday passed, and no letter came. And then Thursday. Catherine had never before been so eager about a letter. She took to going out for a stroll about post-time so that if the letter should arrive it would be there waiting for her when she returned. This manœuvre seemed somehow to lessen the tension of waiting.... Friday came and went, and still no reply from Verreker. Sometimes Catherine felt passionately and proudly annoyed, sometimes she would be on the point of writing again to him. Sometimes she thought: “It is my fault: the letter has irritated him; he has disliked that concluding sentence, ‘Will you do this for me?’” And sometimes she felt: I have written him a polite note, and it is his place to reply. If he doesn’t, I shan’t write again.
And then she had intervals of amazing lucidity, when she upbraided herself without stint. You are being as trivial and as paltry over this letter as anybody might be, she accused herself—your behaviour is absolutely absurd. There are a hundred reasons why he may not have replied, and one of them is that he has completely forgotten. After all, you do not occupy such an important place in his mind as to make it impossible for him to forget you....
And then on Saturday morning (she deliberately stayed in bed till eight in order to convince herself that she had ceased to be absurd) the familiar handwriting lay uppermost beside her plate. With carefully restrained eagerness she cut open the envelope with the bread-knife.
DEAR MISS WESTON (she read),
I am sorry I have delayed in replying to your note, but I have been extremely busy and that must be my excuse. With regard to your project, it is almost impossible to discuss it in correspondence, so will you come to tea here on Sunday (4 p.m.)?
Yours sincerely,
R. E. VERREKER.
“H’m!” she thought. “So he was busy. That was what kept him from writing.” She had never thought of that. And he wanted her to come to tea on Sunday. Sunday was to-morrow....
Her first feeling was one of unutterable relief that the terrible melancholy of Sunday afternoon would be staved off for one week.... Then she began to speculate what she should wear on the occasion.... And afterwards as she strolled along the clean white asphalt of the High Road she yielded herself wholly to vague rapture....