“I shall take the train at seven;” evasively.
I pleaded again, warmly, earnestly. I fancied that I saw tears in his eyes, but he would not promise me positively.
We said a lingering good-bye in the starlight. I felt assured that he must come to a better sense of the matter.
Then I hurried home. They were through supper. Papa was putting on his overcoat.
“I was just coming for you. Why how—excited you look! Is Mrs. Aitken worse?”
“No, I have been walking rapidly.”
“Let me pour your tea;” began Nelly. “I was head of the table, and felt quite grand.”
I tried to be composed. I had promised not to say a word about the meeting, but it seemed strange to have such an important secret in my keeping.
Before I went to bed that night I wrote to Stephen. I never could remember what I said, for I sealed the letter without reading it over, and sent it when Nelly went to school. But I begged him to be patient and merciful to Louis.
Nothing else of importance happened in my week of house-keeping. Thursday evening we received a letter from Fan that was sketchy and funny and incoherent. I felt that she must really be in love. How strangely the links of life join, I said to myself.