And soon, as she expected, he explained himself.
“Mother’s been looking out for you,” he told her severely. “Why didn’t you come? She says you always come on Tuesdays.”
‘Why didn’t you come?’ She threw up her hands over the denseness of his Justinity, as she lied to him.
“Oh—I’m awfully sorry. I didn’t know—I mean I forgot. I mean—I’ve been so fearfully busy this week.”
“What with?” he enquired.
“Oh, I don’t know,” said Laura.
“Well, if you can, you might look in tomorrow,” he decided. “You see, I have to be out.”
She glanced up at him: glanced down again. And then, suddenly, all the dry deadness of her heart broke, like the pope’s staff, into bud, into little blossoms of laughter, delicate bell-flowers that rang out in a thousand fairy carillons of healing mirth.
Dear old Justin!... ‘You see—I have to be out.’ So exactly what Justin might have been reckoned upon to say.... Her lips quivered: her shoulders shook: she was in desperate danger of laughing aloud. She saw so clearly the absurdity of their situation that it was all at once naked of its embarrassment, of its sting. She wanted to share the joke with him, but that was impossible. He would not have been Justin if he could have seen the funny side of himself.
‘You see—I have to be out.’...