"Why, he was the most distressed bein' you'd want to look at," she returned, "just 'cause he couldn't stay and go with you on that boat. You'd think he'd never seen a sign o' the Fair,—not that he said a word about that, he was all taken up with the disappointment o' not goin' with you." Aunt Love was determined to make the most of Gorham's behest to "put it strong."
Clover's face had quieted, and she was occupied in stirring her coffee.
"I told him I guessed you wouldn't be overly hard on him, and he told me to ask you, pervided you did forgive him, to write and tell him so to this address."
Clover looked up quickly as she accepted the card.
"How long will he be gone?"
"A week or ten days, I think he said. Law, if I've forgotten anything he told me, I shall need the prayers o' the con'regation. Strange," continued Miss Berry slyly, "that I haven't ever seen anything so severe about you that Mr. Gorham should look all beside himself at breakin' a light, triflin' promise to you through no fault or his."
"I will write in three or four days," said Clover musingly. "That will divide the time." Then she looked up, and met Aunt Love's eyes fixed on her with an expression that made her glance away.
"He's a none-such," said Miss Berry. "I guess you better let him off easy, Mrs. Van Tassel."
"Oh yes," returned Clover with some confusion. "I will ring for the breakfast now, Aunt Love. We will not wait any longer."
Gorham Page came home to his hotel in St. Louis a few days afterward, tired and enervated by the excessive heat, and requiring to remember all his philosophy not to anathematize the fate which had snatched him from the feast spread upon the shores of Lake Michigan. A little later in the season, during the Congress of Religions, the gentle Dharmapala was riding upon the lagoon one evening, where his snowy silken robes seemed more in place than the close-fitting black of his companions. Looking about him in the waning light where all was melody, harmony, and beauty, he said:—