She called his name.
“Foster—wait!” she ordered. “Now I am goin’ to tell you somethin’ it is plain you haven’t heard. I wonder Esther hasn’t told you. She must know it. Probably she will tell you soon, she certainly ought to. There was a man here this mornin’ from Denboro. His name is Pratt, he peddles fish, probably you know him. Well, he told me he heard last night at the Denboro post office that Bob Griffin was plannin’ to go to Paris to study paintin’. His grandfather had said he might and he was leavin’ almost right away, inside of three weeks, anyhow.... Perhaps you see what that is likely to mean, so far as keepin’ him and Esther apart is concerned.”
He stared at her incredulously; he could not credit the story.
“Bosh!” he snorted. “I don’t believe it. It’s all a lie. They’ve got it mixed up. Somebody has heard that Esther is going, and of course some of them know he has been coming to the house, and so they’ve pieced together a gaff tops’l out of two rags and a rope’s end, same as they generally do.”
“No. That is what I thought at first, but it isn’t that. Pratt heard about it again from the Cooks’ hired girl and she heard Bob and his grandfather talkin’ it over at the dinner table. It is true, he is goin’. And of course it is perfectly plain why he is goin’.... Now, Foster, what will you do about it?”
He did not answer immediately. He stood before her, his florid face growing steadily redder. Then he struck his right fist into the palm of his left hand.
“That is why she was so full of good humor this morning,” he muttered. “He told her last night and— That was it!... Good-by.”
“Wait! Wait, Foster! What are you goin’ to do?”
“Do! I don’t know yet, but you can bet your life something will be done.”
“Oh, Foster, you must be awfully careful. If you aren’t—”