Recollecting himself, and duties still undone, he stopped these premature preparations and, the valise happening to be the object under his vision, he gave it the most prolonged amorous gaze that ever fell to the lot of insensate leather. Then catching up the letter again, he read it over and over.
That evening a messenger boy ran up the Van Tassel steps, and five minutes afterward Clover was smiling and frowning in perplexity over a telegram addressed to her.
I shall come back at the first possible moment.
GORHAM PAGE.
Aunt Love had brought her the message, and she in her mystification read it aloud. Something in Miss Berry's glance, as she met her eyes, made her color rise finely.
"You need not speak of this to Mildred," she said after a pause, with dignity. "I—I do not quite understand it."
"I don't either," thought Miss Berry, discreetly moving away. "Either he's even more kinds of a gump than I thought, or else he's come to his senses with a crash. I always knew when Gorham Page did start out to love a woman somethin' had got to break; and it ain't goin' to be his heart now, thank the Lord. What a pair they will make! My, my!"
Page returned on the second day toward evening. He hoped fate would favor him by sending Mildred and Jack to the illumination that night. It did not occur to him that Clover might have gone too until he neared the house. Then the thought brought dismay. He had schooled himself for days to work and conquer among dry-as-dust details of his profession. Now, it seemed impossible to wait a matter of hours.
There was no one on the piazza when he ascended the steps, and the evening being fine the fact appeared sinister. Miss Berry answered his ring at the bell.
"Oh, it's you, is it?" was her greeting. "Glad to see you back, Mr. Gorham. It hasn't seemed right not to have you runnin' in every day."