Another wait; then—“Dawn!” came his voice in glad surprise.
“Hello!” I cried, hysterically. “Hello! Oh, talk! Say something nice, for pity’s sake! I’m sorry that I’ve taken you away from whatever you were doing, but I couldn’t help it. Just talk please! I’m dying of loneliness.”
“Child, are you ill?” Von Gerhard’s voice was so satisfyingly solicitous. “Is anything wrong? Your voice is trembling. I can hear it quite plainly. What has happened? Has Norah written—”
“Norah? No. There was nothing in her letter to upset me. It is only the strangeness of this place. I shall be all right in a day or so.”
“The new home—it is satisfactory? You have found what you wanted? Your room is comfortable?”
“It’s—it’s a large room,” I faltered. “And there’s a—a large view of the lake, too.”
There was a smothered sound at the other end of the wire. Then—“I want you to meet me down-town at seven o’clock. We will have dinner together,” Von Gerhard said, “I cannot have you moping up there all alone all evening.”
“I can’t come.”
“Why?”
“Because I want to so very much. And anyway, I’m much more cheerful now. I am going in to dinner. And after dinner I shall get acquainted with my room. There are six corners and all the space under the bed that I haven’t explored yet.”