"Why, what is the matter with her? Isn't she here? I thought you said she expected to come back."
Janet began fitting a wing upon her broken figure of the Victory and answered: "No, she isn't."
"Why what has happened? Why didn't you tell me before, Janet?"
"I knew it only just now." She laid down the wing and drew from her blouse waist a letter. "It is very romantic and very like a book," she said, "but I didn't expect it, I expected to be making plans for her, and helping her by my advice and sympathy all through the year and now—"
"Othello's occupation is gone? Well, you can give me the sympathy."
"It's wasted upon you. I never met a person who needed it less. As to advice, you spurn that persistently, and I feel bereft of the use of my highest powers."
"Suppose you don't go mooning on in this strain till after you have told me what has happened to Polly. I have some interest in her welfare though I can steel my heart against her fascinations with more success than you can."
"For one thing," began Janet unfolding her letter and spreading it out on her lap, "she is going abroad with Miss Thurston next month."
"Gracious!" exclaimed Teddy. "What next, pray? I should think that was enough. Is Miss Thurston inviting her?'
"No, and that is where the romantic part comes in. You remember the absent-minded uncle who gave Polly a set of Browning two years running?"