"And not alarming?"
"Alarming?" He knitted puzzled brows. "I begged her to think of me as—like this."
There was a pause.
"It's not her doing," he resumed, hastily, striking out at some indistinct enemy lurking behind the old man's looks. "No ceremony could make us surer of each other. That's why we're not unhappy. It's exactly the same as if we were married."
"Exactly?" He eyed the young face shrewdly, and then, a little baffled by its mixture of sensitive shrinking and frank defiance: "You will oblige me by not keeping this appointment"—he motioned to the letter.
"I'm sorry I can't oblige you, sir."
"Reflect a moment."
"I can't even reflect about it. She's going away to-morrow to spend several months with her sister. After that she goes back to Vassar. I may not see her again till next summer."
"You don't mean she's going back to school this fall?"