Doran did not remember to thank his love for her solicitude. He got up, not frozen now, but a little dazed. It occurred to Billie that he had never looked so handsome, so much a man. She felt that he was gathering himself together. "I'll telephone to Omallaha for a special train to connect with the limited at Chicago," he said. "By the time I can see the Colonel and get off it ought to be ready. Yes, I ought to catch the limited that way. It's awful to leave you like this, but I must. I'll take you to your aunt, and—who's got the next dance with you?"
"Major Naylor," she answered, slightly injured, for not ten minutes ago he had been looking at her card. He ought to have remembered every name on it and in the right order.
"Well, he'll come to you in a minute. Trust him not to lose a second! And—you'll write to me?"
"Of course; you'll wire as soon as you can, how your mother is—and everything? On Monday I shall be back in Chicago."
"I'll wire the moment I can," Max assured her. "You know the address in New York?"
"Oh, yes, everybody knows the beautiful Mrs. Doran's address. I'll write or telegraph every day. My heart will be with you."
He squeezed her hand so desperately that she could have screamed with pain from the pressure of the blue diamond. But with touching self-control she only smiled a strained, sympathetic little smile. And Max had forgotten all about the ring!
"Thank you, my beautiful one, my angel," he said. And Billie's large brown eyes (so effective with her delicate dark brows and rippling yellow hair) gave him a lovely look. She had been called many things by many adoring men, but perhaps never before an "angel." Max Doran was very young, in some ways even younger than his years. "Good-bye," she murmured. "But no—not 'good-bye.' That's a terrible word. Au revoir. You'll come to me when you can, I know. I shall be in Chicago a fortnight. But if you can't leave Mrs. Doran, why, in six weeks I shall be in New York."
"Don't speak of six weeks!" he exclaimed. "It's like six years. I must see you before that. But—my mother is before everything just now."
They bade each other farewell with their eyes. Then he took her to Mrs. Liddell, the small gray aunt, and hardly was Billie seated when Major Naylor dashed up to claim her for Gaëta's waltz in the first act of "Girls' Love."