“I trust you have sense enough to make the same speech to Tom Latimer. Then he will follow Paul’s example: be filled with ambition to go back to Pebbly Pit and straighten out that caved-in mine.”
But both the girls were to learn that it is much easier to talk how events should follow in sequence, than it is to compel fate to do as she is expected to with such events.
That evening, despite his parents’ advice to remain in bed, Tom drove up in a taxi and stopped before the Fabians’ house. He paid the driver, rushed up the steps and pulled at the doorbell.
Polly had just finished dinner and was slowly walking out of the dining-room when the maid opened the door. Tom fairly leaped in when he saw Polly stopping suddenly under the hall-light.
“Oh, my little—” he began, but Polly held up a warning hand and frowned him to silence; then she hurried him to the library across the hall from the dining-room.
“What’s the matter? Didn’t you tell them we were engaged?” asked Tom, impetuously.
“I didn’t know we were what one calls engaged, Tom. You are misunderstanding me. Of course, I did not tell them about what never happened.” Polly was annoyed.
“But,” began Tom, arguing for himself, “I felt sure you meant it the way I said: that you would wear my ring and consider I had a prior right to your love or affections.”
“You’re all wrong! Because that is exactly what I wish to retain for myself—prior right to follow my own life-line. I did say that I liked you more than any other friend I know, and that I might consider you as my future fiancé if, in two years’ time, I came to the conclusion that I would give up a business career. That’s all; and that holds no ground for your giving me an engagement ring, nor for me to take one and wear it. I simply refuse to be bound in any way. Better understand this, once for all, Tom!”
The other members of the family now came in and welcomed Tom and also insisted upon having him tell them how much better he felt. The ring-box which Tom had so eagerly pulled from his vest pocket as he sat upon the divan with Polly, he now managed to slip back again without having been discovered in the act. Even Eleanor failed to see the action.