"John," he commanded, "let that fire go out, lock up, and keep everything straight! Straight, now, you hear!" He felt for a bill and flung it to him.
John's fear fled at the sight of the money. "Dat I will, Marse Lawson, dat I will. I'll tend to ever'ting. Is yuh gwine erway fur Christmas?"
Lawson was locking his suit-case; he stopped and looked at the negro a moment, strangely. "Yes," he said, slowly, "yes, I'm going away for Christmas."
The professor only knew there was another locked door on the corridor.
XIX
There were many other locked doors on the corridors and on East Range and West Range. The quadrangle looked deserted. Edward Montague had gone home. The friendly women in the other houses about the campus were too busied in household doings to have time for visiting. Frances was left to herself and to her house.
The Christmas-tide had always been a joyful holiday for her father and for herself, a time of genuine merry-making and of real rest, when Susan's cooking provided all good things, and the professor allowed himself the luxury of lighter reading, and the two of them were free to come and go as they chose. Frances was brave enough and proud enough to leave no part of any preparation neglected; but her close-shut lips and dark-circled eyes and white cheeks smote her father as nothing else could have done.