They parted at the next corner. As Booth started to cross over to the Plaza, Leslie called out after him:
"I say, Brandy, just a second, please. Are you going to marry Miss Castleton?"
"I am."
"Then, I retract the scurvy things I said back there. I asked her to marry me three times and she refused me three times. What I said about the brambles was rotten. I'd ask her again if I thought she'd have me. There you are, old fellow. I'm a rotten cad, but I apologise to you just the same."
"You're learning, Leslie," said Booth, taking the hand the other held out to him.
While the painter was dining at his club later on in the evening, he was called to the telephone. Watson was on the wire. He said that Mrs. Wrandall would like to know if Mr. Booth could drop in on her for a few minutes after dinner, "to discuss a very important matter, if you please, sir." At nine o'clock, Booth was in Sara's library, trying to grasp a new and remarkable phase in the character of that amazing woman.
He found Hetty waiting for him when he arrived.
"I don't know what it all means, Brandon," she said hurriedly, looking over her shoulder as she spoke. "Sara says that she has come to a decision of some sort. She wants us to hear her plan before making it final. I—I don't understand her at all to-night."
"It can't be anything serious, dearest," he said, but something cold and nameless oppressed him just the same.
"She asked me if I had finally decided to—to be your wife, Brandon. I said I had asked you for two or three days more in which to decide. It seemed to depress her. She said she didn't see how she could give me up, even to you. She wants to be near me always. It is—it is really tragic, Brandon."