“Not even a little bit?”
“I couldn't ever—begin,” answered a half-smothered voice.
“Alice!” cried the man, heart-brokenly.
Alice turned now, and for a fleeting instant let him see her eyes, glowing with the love so long kept in relentless exile.
“I couldn't, because, you see-I began—long ago,” she whispered.
“Alice!” It was the same single word, but spoken with a world of difference, for into it now was crowded all the glory and the wonder of a great love. “Alice!” breathed the man again; and this time the word was, oh, so tenderly whispered into the little pink and white ear of the girl in his arms.
“I got delayed,” began Billy, in the doorway.
“Oh-h!” she broke off, beating a hushed, but precipitate, retreat.
Fully thirty minutes later, Billy came to the door again. This time her approach was heralded by a snatch of song.
“I hope you'll excuse my being gone so long,” she smiled, as she entered the room where her two guests sat decorously face to face at the chess-table.