"I wish I could!" he said wistfully, noting in the distance the cozy dinner table set for two. "If you could only know where I must dine instead!"
"You seem to dread it," said Mary Alice.
"I do," he answered.
She looked at Godmother. "I wish we could tell him the Secret," she suggested shyly, "it might help."
Godmother looked very thoughtful, as if gravely considering. "Not yet," she decided, shaking her head; "it's too soon."
"I think so too," he said. "I'm afraid you might lose interest in me after you had told me. I'd rather wait."
The next day was Sunday. He had engagements for lunch and dinner, but he asked if he might slip in again for tea; he was leaving town Monday.
So they had another beautiful hour, at what Godmother loved to speak of as "candle-lightin' time," and while Mary Alice was in the kitchen cutting bread to toast, Godmother and her guest made notes in tiny note-books.
"There!" she said, when she had written the Gramercy Park address in his book. "Anything you send here will always reach her, wherever she is."
"And any answer she may care to make to me, if you'll address it to me there," handing back her book to her, "will always reach me, wherever I may be."