“You needn’t tell me,” said Mrs. Fay, nodding her head. “I see just how it is with you two. You can’t hide it, you know, so you needn’t to try.”
“Oh, I don’t want to hide anything, I’m sure,” said Philip. But Patty said, “Don’t be foolish, Philip; there’s nothing to hide! You’re mistaken, Mrs. Fay, if you think we’re anything more than friends.”
“Oh, land, child, I know what that means! Maybe you ain’t ready to say yes yet, but you will soon. Well, it ain’t none of my business, but I’m free to confess you are as proper-lookin’ a young couple as I’d want to meet; and mighty well suited to each other.”
“That’s what I think,” began Philip, but Patty turned the subject and went back to the weather, which was always a safe ground for conversation, if not safe to go out into.
“Well,” she said, going to the window for the fourteenth time; “it’s perfectly hopeless to think of starting. And it’s after four now, and it’s blowing great guns and snowing like all possessed! Mrs. Fay, we’ll simply have to accept your hospitality for the night. Now I think I’ll telephone Adèle that we’re stormbound.”
But though Patty called and called, she could get no answer from the telephone Central.
“Guess the wires must be down,” said Miss Winthrop. “They broke down last winter with a snow that came sudden, just like this, and ’twas a week before we got it fixed.”
“Let me try,” and Philip took the receiver from Patty’s hand. But it made no difference who tried, they could get no answer of any kind.
“Oh, well,” said Philip, as he hung up the receiver again, “it doesn’t matter much. They know we’re safe, and they know where we are, and they know we couldn’t start out in a storm like this.”
“Maybe they’ll come for us with a motor,” suggested Patty.