“I’ll go to bed and get a good night’s sleep,” she thought. “In the morning—”
But the tears would not stop. She saw her orderly little room in a mist. The silver on the dressing table made a dazzling blur, and the edge of the mirror was like a rainbow.
“Silly!” she said to herself.
There before her were the precious photographs of her father and her mother, in a double frame. She picked them up and looked at them, blinking away the tears until the beloved faces were clear to her. They had trusted her to come to New York alone, to manage her own life with dignity and discretion; they counted upon her not being silly.
At this moment they would be sitting in the library at home, in the serene quiet of their mutual affection and understanding. Perhaps her father would be writing at his table, his gray[Pg 554] head bent over some scientific treatise, and her mother would be sewing or reading; but whatever they were doing, their child would not be forgotten. The thought of her would come to them at any moment. They must miss her, but they were proud of her and sure of her.
“I’ve got to make Douglas see,” she said to herself. “He’s got to show decent respect for me. I know he’s fond of me, but—”
The tears came again in a rush.
“I know he’s fond of me,” she thought, and remembered the ring.
Imagine his coming like that, with a ring to put on her finger, before he had even asked her if she liked him! The very first time she had asked him here, too! Catching her roughly in his arms and kissing her!
He had shown no trace of delicacy or respect, no appreciation of the honor done him in being asked here. He knew that she was quite alone, and he had taken advantage of it. Kissing her like that, when she had forbidden him!