“You didn’t burst in on them while Paul was kissing her or anything, did you?”
“Paul wasn’t there.”
“Not there! Why, Marius, you’re worse than usual. Didn’t you tell me her mother said—”
“He had been there—one look at Lydia showed that. She sat there alone in the dim light, her face as white—and when I came in she said, without looking to see who it was, ‘I’m engaged to Paul.’ She said it to her mother, who was right after me, of course, and then to Marietta.”
“Well—!” breathed Mrs. Sandworth as he paused; “so that was all there was to it?”
“Oh, no; they did the proper thing. They kissed her, and cried, and congratulated everybody, and her mother said, with an eye on me: ‘Darling, you’re not doing this just because you know it’ll make us so very happy, are you?’ Lydia said, ‘Oh, no; she supposed not,’ and started to go upstairs. But when Marietta said she’d go and telephone to Flora Burgess to announce it, Lydia came down like a flash. It was not to be announced she told them; she’d die if they told anybody! Paul had promised solemnly not to tell anybody. Her mother said, of course she knew how Lydia felt about it. It was a handicap for a girl in her first season. Lydia was half-way up the stairs again, but at that she looked down at her mother—God! Julia, if a child of mine had ever looked at me like that—”
Mrs. Sandworth patted him vaguely. “Oh, people always look white and queer in the twilight, you know—even quite florid complexions.”
The doctor made a rush to the door.
“But dinner must be ready to put on the table,” she called after him.
“Put it on, then,” he cried, and disappeared.