At supper-time Missy had no appetite. Mother was too ill to be at the table, but father noticed it.
“Haven't caught mamma's headache, have you?” he asked solicitously.
Missy shook her head; she wished she could tell father it was her soul that ached. Perhaps father sensed something of this for, after glancing at her two or three times, he said:
“Tell you what!—Suppose you go to the lecture with me to-night. Mamma says she won't feel able. What do you say?”
Missy didn't care a whit to hear the disgusting Dobson, but she felt the reason for her reluctance mightn't be understood—might even arouse hateful merriment, for Aunt Nettie was sitting there listening. So she said evasively:
“I think mother wants me to work on my thesis.”
“Oh, I can fix it with mother all right,” said father.
Missy started to demur further but, so listless was her spirit, she decided it would be easier to go than to try getting out of it. She wouldn't have to pay attention to the detestable Dobson; and she always loved to go places with father.
And it was pleasant, after he had “fixed it” with mother, to walk along the dusky streets with him, her arm tucked through his as if she were a grown-up. Walking with him thus, not talking very much but feeling the placidity and sense of safety that always came over her in father's society, she almost forgot the offensive celebrity awaiting them in the Opera House.
Afterward Missy often thought of her reluctance to go to that lecture, of how narrowly she had missed seeing Dobson. The narrow margins of fate! What if she hadn't gone! Oh, life is thrillingly uncertain and interwoven and mysterious!