Eve demurred, “That would never do. You would betray yourself and there would be an end of you. How good I am not to let you go. No, I'll call there. I shall quietly find out whether it is her doing that we have not been invited so long, or whose it is. You stay where you are. I won't be a minute.”
When the minute was thirty-five, David came under her window and called her. She popped her head out: “Well?”
“What are you doing?”
“Putting on my bonnet.”
“Why, you have been an hour.”
“You wouldn't have me go there a fright, would you?”
At last she came down and started for Font Abbey, and David was left to count the minutes till her return. He paced the gravel sailor-wise, taking six steps and then turning, instead of going in each direction as far as he could. He longed and feared his sister's return. One hour—two hours elapsed; still he walked a supposed deck on the little lawn—six steps and then turn. At last he saw her coming in the distance; he ran to meet her; but when he came up with her he did not speak, but looked wistfully in her face, and tried hard to read it and his fate.
“Now, David, don't make a fool of yourself, or I won't tell you.”
“No, no. I'll be calm, I will—be—calm.”
“Well, then, for one thing, she is to drink tea with us this evening.”