Did a tiny corner of her tightly closed mind open a little as she read? Wait for me....
She turned back to Jack Dalhousie's representative with something like eagerness, to find his eyes fixed upon her.
"Oh!--would it do any harm to wait a little while, do you think?--just till this afternoon?"
"No, no," he said, in rather an odd voice, "it will do no harm now."
"Then I'll send word to you this afternoon--at five or six o'clock," said Cally, with vague flutterings of relief, of hope, perhaps. And then, moved by a sudden impulse, she added: "I will tell you why I want to wait. I am engaged to be married. I think I should tell my fiancé, before anything is done...."
To this V. Vivian made no reply. He was advancing to the door. And then as he paused before the stricken Hun, and saw the glitter of a tear on the piquant gold-and-black lashes, the young man's twisting heart seemed suddenly to loosen, and he said quite simply:
"Won't you let me say how fine and brave a thing you're doing, how splendid a--"
"Don't!" said Cally, recoiling instantly from she knew not what. "Don't!... I'm not brave--at all! Oh, no--that's just it...."
And then, looking down, she added somewhat pitifully: "But I really didn't mean to do anything so bad...."
The alien turned hurriedly away. He went without another word.