She thought that if Denis never came back to her, or if he came back changed, she could not bear to live.
It was half past five—time to put on her hat and go out to meet Nina at the little table d’hôte where they were to have dinner together. She slipped her arms into her fur coat—the coat Denis had bought for her—and pulled on a little hat without troubling to look in the mirror. Who cared how she looked, anyhow? A whole week, and he hadn’t written. Seven days, utterly shut off from him!
“Perhaps there’ll be a letter for me downstairs,” she thought, knowing very well that if there had been, it would have been sent up to her.
There was no letter, but there was Denis himself. At first she couldn’t possibly believe it. She saw some one come through the revolving door—some one like Denis, only it couldn’t be he. He was in New Orleans, and very busy there. The man she saw was very much like Denis—the same sort of well knit, stalwart figure, the same sort of dark, serious face.
“It’s not you, is it?” she asked in a queer little voice.
“Yes,” said he.
His voice gave her no clew, nor did his keen, quiet face. She wasn’t going to be silly. If he could be as cool as this, then so could she.
“I was just going out to dinner with Nina Holley,” she told him.
“I see!” said Denis.
He stood aside for her to go out of the door. Then he followed her out, and they walked down the street side by side, turned a corner, and went down another street, without a single word. This was by no means what Emily wanted.