She quite sprang from her seat.
“Not really!” she exclaimed.
“Yes, so he tell me.”
He drew her back into her chair and she forgot the hand which he still held in her desperate feeling of the instant. She was helplessly choked with conflicting emotions. October instead of December! That came of having a cousin!
The kingdom of the other chair advanced its border-line more than two inches, and she did not appear to notice the bold encroachment.
“What does it matter?” she asked herself bitterly; “in a few days I’m going, and then I shall never lay eyes on him again,” and the tears welled up thickly at the thought.
“Qu’est-ce que vous avez?” he said anxiously; “you must not cry when I am returned, you know!”
At that she sobbed outright.
He looked at her with an intentness very foreign to his usual expression, and seemed to weigh two courses of action and deliberate as to their relative advisability; he ended by laying her hand down gently and going to the window, where he remained for several minutes, looking out and saying nothing.
She dried her eyes quickly and quietly (only a foolish woman continues to weep after the man has gone), and waited for him to turn. Finally he did so.