She told him that she would try, but her tone was so forlorn that his feeling of meanness and guilt increased. And her next speech strengthened them still more.
“I won’t be a baby, Uncle Foster,” she bravely answered him. “I know you are as sorry as I am. It isn’t your fault at all, of course. And,” with an attempt at a smile, “I know, too, that I ought to be glad for your sake. I have never felt right about leaving you.”
He shifted uneasily and gave the “cricket” before the easy-chair a kick which sent it sliding across the floor.
“Don’t talk that way,” he growled. “I—Humph! Well, I’ll make this all up to you before we finish, I’ll swear to that.... Say,” with a sudden inspiration, “I tell you one thing we’ll do! I shall have to go to Washington one of these days and I’ll take you with me. We’ll have a regular spree along with the President and the rest of the big-bugs. That will be something to look forward to, anyhow.”
Perhaps, but, compared to that toward which she had been looking, it was a very poor substitute. And all the rest of that day her disappointment increased rather than diminished. She dreaded Bob’s call that evening. Poor fellow! he would be as disappointed as she was. But he must go, just the same. He must not sacrifice his opportunity for travel and study because hers was postponed. He must go as he had planned. She should insist upon that.
There were other thoughts, too, but she tried not to think them. It had seemed to her that her uncle’s reasons—or Mrs. Carter’s reasons—for canceling the trip had been rather vague and not altogether sufficient to warrant upsetting the plans of so many people. And the decision was so sudden. Her last letter from the lady had contained not a hint of change. It was full of enthusiastic anticipation. Her uncle—
She resolutely refused to think along that line. Her uncle had felt so badly when he broke the news to her. She remembered the tremble in his voice. No, she would not be so disloyal or ungrateful as to suspect.... Never mind Nabby’s suggestion. Nabby was what her employer sometimes called her, a clucking old hen.
She would have gone to her Aunt Reliance and sought consolation there, but the Welfare Society met again that afternoon and she felt bound to attend the meeting.
Bob Griffin, when he came that evening, was in such a glow of high spirits that he could scarcely wait for Foster Townsend to leave the library before voicing his feelings. Townsend appeared to notice his condition.
“You look fit as a fiddle to-night, seems to me,” he observed. “Counting the days till you get to Paris, I suppose; eh? Well, I don’t wonder. Pretty big thing for a young fellow.”