The evening was over at last, and they were going away. Tom had said good night.
"You are to be in New York, at my uncle's, Clara tells me."
"It is true."
"I may see you there?"
For answer she put out her hand. He took it as he would have taken a delicate flower, laid his other hand softly, yet closely, over it, and, without any adieu spoken, went away.
"Tom always declared Willie was a little queer, and I'm sure I begin to think so," said Clara, as she kissed her friend and departed to her room.
CHAPTER V
"A breathing sigh, a sigh for answer,
A little talking of outward things."
JEAN INGELOW
Ah, the weeks that followed! People ate and drank and slept, lived and loved and hated, were born and died,—the same world that it had been a little while before, yet not the same to them,—never to seem quite the same again. A little cloud had fallen between them and it, and changed to their eyes all its proportions and hues.