“Didn't I say, Sunday?”
“Next Sunday?”—Dahlia gave a muffled cry.
“Yes, next Sunday. Day after to-morrow. And I'll write off to-morrow, and ease th' old farmer's heart, and Rhoda 'll be proud for you. She don't care about gentleman—or no gentleman. More do th' old farmer. It's let us, live and die respectable, and not disgrace father nor mother. Old-fashioned's best-fashioned about them things, I think. Come, you bring him—your husband—to me on Sunday, if you object to my callin' on you. Make up your mind to.”
“Not next Sunday—the Sunday after,” Dahlia pleaded. “He is not here now.”
“Where is he?” Anthony asked.
“He's in the country.”
Anthony pounced on her, as he had done previously.
“You said to me he was abroad.”
“In the country—abroad. Not—not in the great cities. I could not make known your wishes to him.”
She gave this cool explanation with her eyelids fluttering timorously, and rose as she uttered it, but with faint and ill-supporting limbs, for during the past hour she had gone through the sharpest trial of her life, and had decided for the course of her life. Anthony was witless thereof, and was mystified by his incapability of perceiving where and how he had been deluded; but he had eaten all the muffin on the plate, and her rising proclaimed that she had no intention of making him call for another; which was satisfactory. He drank off her cup of tea at a gulp.