"Of course I’m nervous," she said. "Every one is. It’s nothing—nothing at all!"
She suppressed a scream when the door-bell rang. She listened, behind her half-closed door, until she heard Eddie’s voice talking quite in his usual tone to her mother. No one called her. Nothing had happened.
She stood still, in a sort of daze, getting no further forward in her dressing, until her mother entered the room.
"He’s going to take me down and put me in the auto," said Mrs. Kennedy. "Then he’s coming back after you. You’d better hurry. It’s late, and I don’t see any use for you to be keeping all those people waiting. That’s not a very good way to begin."
"All right!" said her daughter hurriedly. "Go on, mother!"
She set to work in haste to add the finishing touches to her dress, fastening the little bar pin with diamonds given her by Mrs. Russell, drawing on her white kid gloves.
She heard him coming. She heard him stop at the kitchen door, and tell the woman working in the kitchen that she might go. Then he came and knocked at her door.
"Ready, Angelica?" he called out.
She gave one glance in the mirror; then she opened the door with a forced, polite smile. There stood the poor soldier who wished to give her all he had—poor, ardent Eddie, longing so to take her back to his beloved home, and give it into her keeping. He stood in the doorway of her little room, looking at her, and he too was smiling—a smile as strained, as artificial as her own.
"Angelica!" he said softly.