"Of you? Oh, yes; he asks if you are well, each day. He never forgets such things. Why?"
She had no answer to that natural question. In spite of her reason, Flavia was chilled by the flat conventionality of Gerard's apparent attitude, as represented by those formal inquiries. Almost she would have preferred that he had not spoken of her at all; silence could not have implied indifference.
"Nothing," she faltered. It clearly was impossible to speak as she had imagined. "Only, as his hostess, and your sister, I fancied that he might——"
"He wouldn't say that sort of thing to me, Other Fellow. No doubt he will come to pay a farewell call before he leaves. He isn't very fit, you know; he hasn't been out yet. He must be at his western factory this week, he said, or he wouldn't try to travel."
Her color rushed back. Why had she not remembered that? Why should he speak of her to anyone, since to-morrow he would come to see her? To-morrow? The clocks had struck midnight, to-day they would see each other.
"It is late," Corrie added, as if in answer to her thought. He sighed wearily. "You are tired, I suppose we both are. Come up."
He passed his arm about her waist, and they went up the stairs together, leaning on one another. But Allan Gerard was a third presence with them, and in their sense of his guardianship brother and sister rested like children comforted.
The following day was one filled with an atmosphere of disruption and imminent departure. The very servants caught the contagion and hurried uncomfortably about their tasks. Corrie's preparations were unostentatious, but Isabel's agitated the entire household. Also, Mr. Rose issued his instructions that Flavia should be ready to start for France on the next steamer sailing. The house that had been rose-colored within and without was become a gray place to be avoided.
Flavia thought all day of Allan Gerard. She knew her father went in the afternoon to pay him a farewell visit, she knew Corrie was with him all the morning, and when each returned home she suspended breath in anticipation of hearing the step of a guest also—the step of Gerard coming towards the goal which he had half-showed her in the fountain arbor. But Corrie and Mr. Rose each entered alone.
Nevertheless, she chose to wear his color, that night; the pale, glistening tea-rose yellow above which her warm hair showed burnished gold. He must come that evening, if at all; she would be truly "Flavia Rose" to him.