"You must leave me now," she said.
He bowed and stood looking after her as she went up the steps and ran across the veranda in her eagerness to lose herself in the throng within the house. And Eades remained outside, walking under the trees.
Half an hour later Elizabeth stood with Marriott in the drawing-room. Her face was pale; the joy, the spirit that had been in it earlier in the evening had gone from it.
"Ah," said Marriott suddenly, "there goes John Eades. I hadn't seen him before."
Elizabeth glanced hurriedly at Eades and then curiously at Marriott. His face wore the peculiar smile she had seen so often. Now it seemed remote, to belong to other days, days that she had lost.
"He's making a great name for himself just now," said Marriott. "He's bound to win. He'll go to Congress, or be elected governor or something, sure."
She longed for his opinion and yet just then she felt it impossible to ask it.
"He's a--"
"What?" She could not forbear to ask, but she put the question with a little note of challenge that made Marriott turn his head.
"One of those young civilians."