“No.”
“And even if you were, of course you’d be coming back to visit your relatives every now and then.”
“I don’t know when I’m coming back. Mother and I are starting to-morrow night for a trip around the world.”
At this she did look thoughtful. “Your mother is going with you?”
“Good heavens!” he groaned. “Lucy, doesn’t it make any difference to you that I am going?”
At this her cordial smile instantly appeared again. “Yes, of course,” she said. “I’m sure I’ll miss you ever so much. Are you to be gone long?”
He stared at her wanly. “I told you indefinitely,” he said. “We’ve made no plans—at all—for coming back.”
“That does sound like a long trip!” she exclaimed admiringly. “Do you plan to be travelling all the time, or will you stay in some one place the greater part of it? I think it would be lovely to—”
“Lucy!”
He halted; and she stopped with him. They had come to a corner at the edge of the “business section” of the city, and people were everywhere about them, brushing against them, sometimes, in passing.