“You know you wrote and asked me to come last Sunday.”
“That,” said Miss Carter, “was due to a misunderstanding.”
“I know it was, but I thought—well, you see, I came again. I—I wanted to see you.”
Miss Carter left the egg beater and faced him squarely. She stood where the golden light of the setting sun fell upon her soft, untidy hair. She stood there, in her unbecoming dress, with her flushed, tired face, and defied Mr. Rhodes. She thought that when he really looked at her, when he realized what the true Miss Carter was like, a great change would come over him.
“I couldn’t go away until I’d seen you,” he said. “And now—”
And now that he had seen her “as is,” of course he would never want to see her again!
“Now it’s harder than ever to go away,” he said. “Now I never want to go away. You don’t know how you look—how—how lovely!”
“Lovely?” she cried.
“Yes!” said he. “You do! I mean it.”
His steady eyes were fixed upon her face, but Miss Carter would not look at him—not she! It was very well for Maude and that young man to stand and stare at each other, but she wasn’t young, and she wasn’t going to be silly.