"Till half-past nine," said Fran, nonchalantly. "Very well, then."
"But what will we do in the meantime, if we're not to talk till—"
"We?" she mocked him. "Listen, Abbott, don't look so cross. I've a friend in town with a sick daughter, and she's a real friend so I must go to help her, a while."
He was both mystified and disappointed. "I didn't know you had any such friends in Littleburg," he remonstrated, remembering how unkind tongues had set the village against her.
Fran threw back her head, and her gesture was full of pride and confidence. "Oh!" she cried, "the town is full of my friends."
He could only stare at her in dumb amazement.
"All right, then," she said with the greatest cheerfulness, "at half- past nine. You understand the date—nine-thirty. Of course you wouldn't have me desert a friend in trouble. Where shall we meet, Abbott—at nine-thirty? Shall we say, at the Snake-Eater's?"
"No. We shall not say at the Snake-Eater's. Fran, I want you right now. I know nothing of this sick friend, but I need you more than anybody else in the world could possibly need you."
Fran said nothing, but her eyes looked at him unfaltering. She flashed up out of the black continuity of the throng like a ray of light glancing along the surface of the sea. It needed no sun in the sky to make Fran-beams.
"Go, Fran," he exclaimed, "I'll wait for you as long as I must, even if it's the eternity of nine-thirty; and I'd go anywhere in the world to meet you, even to the den of the Snake-Eater."