"No," said Mrs. Larpent. "She'll order it herself if she wants any, don't you think so?"
Franklin got up. "Excuse me," he said, and stalked into the hotel, asked the comatose clerk the number of Mrs. Keene's room, waved away a gymnastic colored boy who volunteered to show him and went upstairs two at a time. Sooner or later he would be obliged, he had come to the conclusion, either to put as many thousand miles between himself and Beatrix as the map of the earth allowed or treat her as a sister. All the day's thinking had proved this to him, who knew so little about women.
He knocked on the door, waited and knocked again.
It was opened by Beatrix, who was still in her dust-covered clothes and hat. He saw at once that she had been crying and resented it as much as though he had seen her arm in a splint.
"Have you had tea?" he asked bluntly, because he wanted to kiss her beyond description and hadn't the right.
"No," said Beatrix.
"Shall I send some up?"
"Will you? I'd love it. I'm so tired."
"Yes, of course you are. Why didn't you ring and make this rotten hotel run about?"
"I forgot. It's awfully nice of you to have bothered about me."