Miss Van Vetter's poise was an inheritance which had lost nothing in transmission, but the unconscious reproach in his appeal overset it. Under less trying conditions her laugh would have emancipated him; but being still in the bonds of unreadiness, he could only glower at her in a way which lacked nothing of hostility save intention, and say, "I should think you might tell me what you're laughing at!"
"Oh, nothing—nothing at all. Only one would think you were sorry I didn't go. Are you?"
"You know well enough I'm not." This time the reproach was not unconscious. "But you haven't answered my question. I have a horrible suspicion, and I want to know."
"It was Connie's mistake. I was to meet them at the station at half past four—I am sure she said half past four—and when I went down I found the train had been gone an hour. Did you ever hear of such a thing?"
Miss Van Vetter did not know that the small arch-plotter had exhausted her ingenuity trying to devise some less primitive means of accomplishing her purpose; but Bartrow gave Connie full credit for act and intention.
"She'd do worse things than that; she wouldn't stick at anything to carry her point," he said unguardedly.
Myra laughed again. "I hope you don't ask me to believe that she did it purposely," she said.
"Oh, no; of course not. I don't ask you to believe anything—except that I'm foolishly glad you missed the train," rejoined the downright one, beginning to find himself.
"Are you, really? I was almost ready to doubt it."
Bartrow was not yet fit to measure swords of repartee with any one, least of all with Miss Van Vetter, and the quicksand of speechlessness engulfed him. His helplessness was so palpable that it presently became infectious, and Myra was dismayed to find herself growing sympathetically self-conscious. Her letter lay between their last meeting and this, and she began to wonder if that were the barrier. When the silence became portentous, Bartrow gathered himself for another dash toward enlargement. It was that or asphyxia. The very air of the room was heavy with the narcosis of embarrassment.