He stroked her hand. “I’ve been thinking of something else, Jane.”
“Of me, I suppose, and the silly notion you have of releasing me from my promise.”
“I do release you, dear.”
“I refuse to release you—so that’s that, as mother says. I am ready and willing to have father marry us to-night, Oliver.”
“We will have to wait, dear,” he said, rather wistfully.
Lizzie Meggs appeared at the sitting-room door.
“That’s the third time the telephone has rung, Oliver,” she announced. “Hadn’t I better answer it?”
He shook his head. “No, Lizzie. Let ’em ring. It’s probably the newspapers—”
“You’d better let her answer, Oliver,” broke in Mrs. Grimes anxiously. “It may be some of your friends calling up to sympathize—”
“All my real friends are here, Aunt Serepta—except Sammy. We can’t be answering the telephone all night.”