While she thought she was dressing, for she was really very curious to see Gloria and hear what she had to say. The door of Gloria’s room was half open and Ruth knocked and went inside at the same moment. Gloria was fully dressed and seemed to be in the midst of packing. There were dark circles under her eyes as if she had not slept.
“Ruth, I want you to do something for me,” was her abrupt greeting.
Ruth waited for an explanation.
“Will you?”
“Of course, Gloria,—anything.”
“I believe you would at that—you’re an awfully nice child; sometimes I suspect that you’re older than I am; but this is something rather nasty, so don’t be too sure that you’ll want to do it. I want you to tell Aggie that I can’t marry him—that I must have been insane when I said I would, that the whole thing is utterly impossible—that it would please me if he would go back to New York at once. I don’t want to see him any more.”
Ruth struggled to conceal her joy at this announcement.
“Don’t you think, Gloria, that it would be more effective if you told him yourself?”
“No; and besides I don’t want to see the brute—he—he— Oh, I can’t bear to look at him—to remember everything—”
“Suppose he doesn’t believe me?”