"Dear me!" John ejaculated in a dismal tone.
They were sitting as described on a former occasion, and the young woman was engaged upon the second (perhaps the third, or even the fourth) of the set of doilies to which she had committed herself. She took some stitches with a composed air, without responding to her companion's exclamation.
"I'm awfully sorry," he said presently, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees, his hands hanging in an attitude of unmistakable dejection, and staring fixedly into the fire.
"I am very sorry myself," she said, bending her head a little closer over her work. "I think I like being in New York in the spring better than at any other time; and I don't at all fancy the idea of living in my trunks again for an indefinite period."
"I shall miss you horribly," he said, turning his face toward her.
Her eyes opened with a lift of the brows, but whether the surprise so indicated was quite genuine is a matter for conjecture.
"Yes," he declared desperately, "I shall, indeed."
"I should fancy you must have plenty of other friends," she said, flushing a little, "and I have wondered sometimes whether Julius's demands upon you were not more confident than warrantable, and whether you wouldn't often rather have gone elsewhere than to come here to play cards with him." She actually said this as if she meant it.
"Do you suppose—" he exclaimed, and checked himself. "No," he said, "I have come because—well, I've been only too glad to come, and—I suppose it has got to be a habit," he added, rather lamely. "You see, I've never known any people in the way I have known you. It has seemed to me more like home life than anything I've ever known. There has never been any one but my father and I, and you can have no idea what it has been to me to be allowed to come here as I have, and—oh, you must know—" He hesitated, and instantly she advanced her point.
Her face was rather white, and the hand which lay upon the work in her lap trembled a little, while she clasped the arm of the chair with the other; but she broke in upon his hesitation with an even voice: