"Why—why, Mr. Rollins!" gasped everybody all at once. "Whatever in the world were you thinking of?"
"Maybe—maybe—he didn't hear it—after all!" rallied the Bride with the first real ray of hope.
"Maybe he just saw it coming," suggested the Bridegroom.
"And dodged in the nick of time," said George Keets.
"To save not only himself but ourselves," frowned my Husband, "from an almost irretrievable awkwardness.
"Why just the minute before it happened," deprecated Ann Woltor, "I was thinking suddenly how much better he looked, how his color had improved,—why his cheeks looked almost red."
"Yes, the top of his cheeks," said the May Girl, "were really quite red." Her own cheeks at the moment were distinctly pale. "Where do you suppose he's gone to?" she questioned. "Don't you think that—p'raps—somebody ought to go and find him?"
"Oh, for heaven's sake leave him alone!" cried Paul Brenswick.
"Leave him alone," acquiesced all the other men.
In the moment's nervous reaction and letdown that ensued it was really a relief to hear George Keets cry out, with such poignant amazement from his stand at the window: