"Nothing doing—all quiet," replied the clerk, but Curtis detected something yet untold in the quiver of his clerk's eyelid.
"Well, I'm glad we got in."
Supper was eaten with little ceremony and very languid conversation, and the artists at once sought their rooms to rest. The Parkers were too tired to be nervous, and Curtis was absorbed with some private problem.
As Lawson and Elsie walked across the square in the twilight he announced, meditatively:
"I'm going to be more and more impatient—that is now certain."
"Osborne, don't! Please don't take that tone; I don't like it."
"Why not, dear?" he asked, tenderly.
"Because—because—" She turned in a swift, overmastering impulse. "Because if you do, I must give you back your ring." She wrung it from her finger. "I think I must, anyhow."
As she crowded the gem into his lax hand he said: "Why, what does this mean, Elsie Bee Bee?" His voice expressed pain and bewilderment.
"I don't know what it means yet, only I feel that it isn't right now to wear it. I told you when you put it on that it implied no promise on my part."