As soon as they were settled, he moved toward the door.
"Going already?" Hilda asked brightly.
"Yes. I have a lot to do to-night."
Anne's heart thumped. Perhaps he was going to leave for Chicago to-night. He had not said when.
"Roger's going to Chicago," she explained.
"To Chicago! Well, that is a trip! Won't it be roasting? Going on business?"
What did she suppose he was going for? "Yes," he answered as pleasantly as he could, and knew that Mrs. Welles thought him extremely rude.
"It's not so hot now," she interposed in her sweet, low voice, so evidently smoothing a situation she had no right to assume existed, that Roger resented her almost more than he did Hilda.
"No. It cools off in September." He moved nearer the door. Anne and Hilda followed.
"How long will you be away?"