“You evidently haven’t.”
“I remembered it perfectly and was waiting until we got settled in our new house before I wrote you. I was going to give you a surprise.”
“Well, you’ve surprised me enough already.” He leaned a little nearer to her, and looking at her with eyes that were at once soft and bold said: “You’ve changed so; you’ve changed immensely since I saw you last.”
She dropped her eyes and said demurely,
“I hope it’s for the better,” then looked up at him and their laughter broke out in happy duet.
The Colonel heard it across the room, and glancing at them felt annoyed that June should look so suddenly flushed and radiant. Evidently she and Jerry Barclay, in the ten days he had spent at Foleys, had become very good friends.
An hour later the Misses Allen were standing at the top of the steps that led from the porch to the street. Guests were departing in all directions, and the lanterns of carriages were sending tubes of opaque, yellow light through the fog. The Colonel had gone in quest of theirs, cautioning his charges to wait in the shelter of the porch for him. Here they stood, close-wrapped against the damp, and peering into the churning white currents. Just below them two men, the collars of their coats up, paused to light their cigars. One accomplished the feat without difficulty; the other stood with his hand curved round the match, which many times flamed and went out.
Suddenly June heard his companion say between puffs,
“Queer, Mrs. Newbury being here!”
“Oh, I don’t know,” said the other, drawing a new match from his pocket, “Mrs. Davenport knew the Romero girls long before they were married. They were friends of Annie Davenport’s. Nobody’d ever breathed a word against either of them then. She wouldn’t throw Lupé down on a rumored scandal. I don’t see how she could.”