I awoke the next morning with the feeling that something or other was impending. I had no idea what it might be, pleasant or unpleasant. I felt a little the way you feel just before a race on which you have bet altogether too much money, a little excited, a little nervous, equally ready for laughter or anger. I had also the feeling that I had a great many things to do, and could not possibly get them done in so short a space of time as one day.
I hurried through breakfast. I hurried through the papers. And then I realized with a sense of anti-climax that until four o'clock, when I was to ride with Lucy, I had but one thing of any possible importance to do. And upon that business from first to last including the walk to the village and thence to the Club I spent no more than three-quarters of an hour. It had been an eccentric piece of business, and I was rather pleased with myself for having brought it to a satisfactory conclusion. But I wanted others to know what I had done and to be pleased with me for doing it; and to tell anyone was quite out of the question.
In the Club letter-box under "M," I saw a small gray envelope. Instinct told me that it was for me, and that it was from Lucy. Then somehow all my feeling of restlessness and suspense melted away like a lump of sugar in hot tea. I felt at once serene and comfortable.
I carried the note to a writing-table, for I imagined that it would require an immediate answer, and then read it. Like all Lucy's notes it began without the conventional endearment, and ended with initials. It contained also her usual half-dozen mistakes in spelling.
John says he has no money and can't get any. So we've got to close the house and go back north, and live very cheaply till better times. So I've got to begin packing. So I can't ride this afternoon. Isn't it all a beastly shame? But please drop in and say how-dy-do just the same, and don't mind if you have to sit on a trunk. And please be a little sorry because I'm going away and we can't have any more rides. And please don't say anything about this; because John isn't just himself and maybe when we get all packed up he'll change his mind.
L. F.
Long before they were "all packed up," John did change his mind. I was present when he changed it. Lucy, Evelyn, and I were in the living-room helping each other to pack large silver-framed photographs into the tray of a trunk. It was slow work. During the winter none of us had looked at the photographs or commented on the originals, but now that they were to be swathed in tissue paper and put out of sight each one had to be approved or disapproved, and long excursions had to be made into the life histories and affairs of the friends who had sat for them.
Lucy had just taken a large photograph of Evelyn from the top of the low bookshelves that filled one end of the room when John came in from the garden with an open letter in his hand. He was smiling in a puzzled sort of way.
"What do you know about this!" he exclaimed rather than asked.
"Nothing," said Lucy, "yet." And she began to wrap Evelyn's photograph in many folds of tissue paper.
"Yesterday," said John, "I tried to get some money from the bank, but they turned me down. Now they write that upon reconsideration I can have anything I like."