Afterward, when the time drew near for the Elliotts' return, he took his leave, though it was yet early.
"They are the best friends I have on earth," he said, when Myra went to the door with him, "but somehow, I feel as if I didn't want to meet anybody I know,—not to-night. I want to have it all to myself for a few hours."
She laughed at that; a laugh with an upbubbling of content and pure happiness in it; and sent him off with his heart afire. When he was halfway down the walk she recalled him. He came back obediently.
"It will cost you something every time you do that," he protested, exacting the penalty. "Was that what you wanted?"
"Of course not! I merely wanted to ask you what it is to 'owl' a person. You said I 'owled' you."
"Did I? Well, you don't; you never can. That is the best definition I can think of: something you can never do to me. May I say good-night again? the way I did a minute ago?"
The glare of the arc-light swinging between its poles across the avenue was quite ruthless, and there were passers-by in straggling procession on the sidewalk. But at the critical instant the kindly incandescence burned blue, clicked, fizzed, and died down to a red spot in the darkness. For which cause Bartrow presently went his way, with the heart-fire upblazing afresh; and when Myra won back to the library and the cosy depths of the great chair, the color scheme of fair neck and cheek and brow was not altogether the reflection from the crimson shade of the reading-lamp.