She gasped. “Bob Griffin!” she cried. “What do you mean?”
“I mean that I can’t have you climbing up to be a prima donna while I stay here and keep on daubing at two-for-a-cent pictures. No, I’ll be studying to be a Rembrandt. And in the same city. I sail for Paris about as soon as you do. If I dared it would be on the same ship.... Hold on! Let me tell you about it.”
It was the idea he had already mentioned, that which had come to him just before their parting on Tuesday evening. The money he had inherited was sufficient to pay his expenses. He had always intended using it for some such purpose.
“Of course,” he added, with a rather rueful grin, “there was a time, a little while ago, when I began to hope I—well, you and I—might use some of that money in other ways; but when you said you were going abroad, to leave me biting my brush ends on this side of the pond, I saw a new light. I told grandfather and, of course, there was a rumpus. He gave in, finally, as he usually does, because he is a good old sport and also, I guess, because he saw fighting was no use in this case. I am going, and going pretty soon. I’ll be in Paris when you are and as long as you are; be there waiting for you to make up your mind concerning that matter we mustn’t talk about. We’ll be there together, and waiting together.... Now what do you think of that?”
She did not know what to think, still less what to say. And she could not trust herself to say much of anything at the moment. She was conscious of a thrill, a dangerous thrill, of delight. They were not to be separated, after all. He was to be near her during her exile, she would see him often, perhaps almost as often as now. Why—
And, as they stood there in the doorway of the hall, the clock in that hall chimed eleven.
“Well, what do you think?” he repeated. She shook her head.
“I can’t think at all—now,” she confessed. “I— Well, you have taken my breath away. Are you sure— But I mustn’t talk about it to-night. It is eleven o’clock and you must go. The next time I see you you will tell me all about it, of course.”
“Of course. And that will be Tuesday evening, or sooner. But tell me this: Aren’t you glad?”
“Of course I am glad. You know I am.... Good-night.”