Mr. Metcalfe Brown walked across the room and threw himself into a chair; at least the sounds from above indicated some such actions on his part.
"I don't know why, but he didn't," said Ashley with a momentary glance at the ceiling—rather as though he feared it would fall on him.
"Not come?" she whispered. "Oh, Ashley!" She seemed for a moment to hold herself in the chair by the grasp of her hands on its arms. Then she rose and moved slowly towards him. "He didn't come?"
"Not a sign of him."
"And—and he won't, will he?"
"I don't expect so," said Ashley, smiling.
Ora seemed to accept his answer as final. She stood still, for a moment grave, then breaking into a gurgle of amused delighted laughter. Ashley glanced again at the ceiling; surely a man who had ever heard that laugh must remember it! But had the man upstairs? Was not that laugh made and kept for him himself from the beginning of the world? So his madness persuaded him.
"Rather funny, wasn't it? So I came back alone by the slow train—a very slow train it was, without you."
Ora's mood was plain enough. She was delighted, and she was hardly surprised. No instability of purpose and no change of intention were out of harmony with her idea of her husband. There was no telling why he had not come, but there was nothing wonderful in his not coming. She spread her arms out with a gesture of candid self-approval.
"Well, I've done my duty," said she.