"Oh, Linford!"
Linford! The name seemed to sink into the stillness of the great house, leaving no ripple behind. Before an answer to the call could come, she had opened the great door and pulled it sharply to behind her.
Outside, she lingered a moment as if in serenely absent contemplation of the street, with the air of one who sought to recall her next engagement. Then, gathering up her skirts, she went leisurely down the steps and passed unhurriedly from the view of those dismayed eyes that she felt upon her from the Wyeth window.
On the avenue she turned north and was presently alone in a shaded aisle of the park—that park whose very trees and shrubs seem to have taken on a hard, knowing look from having been so long made the recipients of cynical confidences. They seemed to understand perfectly what had happened, to echo Wyeth's high-pitched, friendly drawl, with an added touch of mockery that was all their own—"Oh—Linford!"
CHAPTER XVII
For the Sake of Nancy
It was toward six o'clock when she ascended the steps of the rectory. Bernal, coming from the opposite direction, met her at the door. Back of his glance, as they came together, was an intimation of hidden things, and at sight of him she was smitten by an electric flash of wonder. The voice of Wyeth, that friendly, untroubled voice, she now remembered had called to no specific Linford. In the paralysis of embarrassment that had seized her in that darkened hallway, she had failed to recall that there were at least two Linfords in existence. In an instant her inner world, wrought into something like order in the past two hours, was again chaos.
"Why, Nance—you look like night, when there are no stars—what is it?" He scanned her with an assumption of jesting earnestness, palpably meant to conceal some deeper emotion. She put a detaining hand on his arm as he was about to turn the key in the lock.
"Bernal, I haven't time to be indirect, or beat about, or anything—so forgive the abruptness—were you at Mrs. Wyeth's this afternoon?"