“I wish it were,” he replied. “No, Meta, nothing so good as that, but something I received before I left Aberdeen, and, strange to say, forgot to say a word to you about. A telegram.”
They went and sat down to read it.
“I don’t like it,” she said. “Why didn’t she say more? Why does she use such a funny bit of paper? Why so formal? And how funnily she writes!”
Claude laughed, and explained all about telegrams, telling Meta that people could not say all they wanted to in a semi-public document, but that generally a good deal was left to be inferred, that the receiver must often read between the lines.
Innocent Meta held the telegram up between her and the evening sunshine.
Claude laughed again, and caught her hand.
“I don’t mean in that way, silly child,” he said. “There; we will read between the words in the way I mean.”
Then he told her a good deal of his own history, and how much he knew his mother loved him, and how he believed she really was sorry he had gone away, but that pride forbade her saying so, though she doubtless wanted him to be happy, and not to depart with a sore heart—and a deal more I need not note.
“Don’t you see, Meta?”
“Dark and dim, as through a glass,” said Meta, musing. “Telegrams are queer things, Claude, and I have never seen one before, but you must be right, because you look happy.”