"I'm glad. I do hope nothing will interrupt you."
"Something will; it always does. Fortunately it is Lent and not much is stirring. Anyway, I mean to have my mornings free, whatever comes."
"I'll mount guard on the threshold, if you want," he responded.
Only a week afterward, Theodora was in her writing-room, hard at work. Her desk, surmounted by a shabby photograph of her husband in his boyhood, was orderly and deserted; but the broad couch across the western window was strewn with sheets of manuscript which overflowed to the floor, while in the midst of them Theodora sat enthroned, a book on her knee and her ink insecurely poised on one of the cushions beside her. Across the lawn she could see The Savins among the tall, bare trees, and she paused now and then to watch the yellow sunshine as it sifted down through the branches. All at once she stopped, with a frown.
"But I must see her," Allyn was saying sharply.
"She is busy."
"Never mind; she will see me."
There was a word or two more; then a silence, and Theodora returned to her interrupted sentence. The next minute, she started abruptly, as she heard a boyish fist descend on the panels of her door.
"Go away! Oh, my ink!" she exclaimed. "Please let me alone. It's all tipped over."
"I'm sorry, Ted; but I must come." And Allyn stalked into the room.