She was silent for a moment.
"When do you return?"
"I hardly know," he answered. "And I suppose I've got to start at once in order to maintain our little fiction."
"Don't forget to write," she said, blushing, as she had before; and she added: "for appearances." She rose from her seat.
Garrison pulled out his watch and remarked, for the Robinsons to hear:
"Well, I've got to be off."
"Wait a minute, please," said Dorothy, as if possessed by a sudden impulse, and she ran from the room like a child.
With nothing particularly pleasant to say to the Robinsons, Garrison approached a center-table and turned the pages of a book.
Dorothy was back in a moment.
"I'll go down to the door," she said.
Garrison said good-night to the Robinsons, who answered curtly. He closed the door upon them as he left the room.