"I thought it met your cordiality quite half way," was the rejoinder. "Of course, I am glad to be assured of Mr. and Mrs. Carling's regard, and that they would be glad to see me, but I think I might have been justified in hoping that you would go a little further, don't you think?"
He looked at her as he asked the question, but she did not turn her head. Presently she said in a low voice, and slowly, as if weighing her words:
"Will it be enough if I say that I shall be very sorry if you do not come?" He put his left hand upon her right, which was resting on the rail, and for two seconds she let it stay.
"Yes," he said, "thanks—very—much!"
"I must go now," she said, turning toward him, and for a moment she looked searchingly in his face. "Good night," she said, giving him her hand, and John looked after her as she walked down the deck, and he knew how it was with him.
CHAPTER VI.
John saw Miss Blake the next morning in the saloon among the passengers in line for the customs official. It was an easy conjecture that Mr. Carling's nerves were not up to committing himself to a "declaration" of any sort, and that Miss Blake was undertaking the duty for the party. He did not see her again until he had had his luggage passed and turned it over to an expressman. As he was on his way to leave the wharf he came across the group, and stopped to greet them and ask if he could be of service, and was told that their houseman had everything in charge, and that they were just going to their carriage, which was waiting. "And," said Miss Blake, "if you are going up town, we can offer you a seat."
"Sha'n't I discommode you?" he asked. "If you are sure I shall not, I shall be glad to be taken as far as Madison Avenue and Thirty-third Street, for I suppose that will be your route."
"Quite sure," she replied, seconded by the Carlings, and so it happened that John went directly home instead of going first to his father's office. The weather was a chilly drizzle, and he was glad to be spared the discomfort of going about in it with hand-bag, overcoat, and umbrella, and felt a certain justification in concluding that, after two years, a few hours more or less under the circumstances would make but little difference. And then, too, the prospect of half or three-quarters of an hour in Miss Blake's company, the Carlings notwithstanding, was a temptation to be welcomed. But if he had hoped or expected, as perhaps would have been not unnatural, to discover in that young woman's air any hint or trace of the feeling she had exhibited, or, perhaps it should be said, to a degree permitted to show itself, disappointment was his portion. Her manner was as much in contrast with that of the last days of their voyage together as the handsome street dress and hat in which she was attired bore to the dress and headgear of her steamer costume, and it almost seemed to him as if the contrasts bore some relation to each other. After the question of the carriage windows—whether they should be up or down, either or both, and how much—had been settled, and, as usual in such dilemmas, by Miss Blake, the drive up town was comparatively a silent one. John's mind was occupied with sundry reflections and speculations, of many of which his companion was the subject, and to some extent in noting the changes in the streets and buildings which an absence of two years made noticeable to him.