Fool! While he had been standing there happy with dreaming of seeing her, she had been slipping away from him in the glistening coaches he had watched so idly.
He had not a word to say.
"Don't know what possessed her. It was a sudden fancy. Last night she took it into her head all at once. It isn't like Frances to do such things! She was going this morning, she said, and she had us up by daybreak; she was bent on making this early train."
"Where has she gone?" asked Edward, dully.
"Keswick! Her cousin, you know; she can telephone to the store near his farm and have them send out for her. But," he repeated, "I can't think what possessed her."
Had the professor been able to think, to know what sent his daughter running away from him, his wrath had been hard for some one that day.
The day before had been the match game. Frances, though some vague, half-delicious instinct of fear and distrust had made her keep from the old friendly footing with Lawson, had grown wildly enthusiastic at each day's practice. At three o'clock of that afternoon she had been driving out towards the ground. An orange and blue rosette was pinned in the breast of her smart brown jacket, and an orange and blue pennant lay at her feet in the trap.
Carriage after carriage was winding up the road already in the enclosure. The wind was soft, the sunshine of Indian Summer brooding over the land; the blue haze of the mountains, intensified, hung about their slopes and peaks. Here and there the late leaves still clung, blackberry and sumach flaunted their scarlet in the fence corners, and on the bit of rock-fence bordering a field the poison oak and ivy flecked the dull hue with red and bronze. Far below, where the land dipped to the valley, the country shimmered in the sunlight.
Inside the grounds, Frances pulled up close beside the ropes. The grand stand had scarce an occupant, but all the enclosure outside the ropes about the arena was filled with carriages, the young women calling from one to the other. The University men were crowded close on the other sides of the ropes, calling, hurrahing, yelling, or, more sociably inclined, lounging around the barriers and talking to the young women in the carriages.
One of them came up to Frances and imperturbably possessed himself of the seat by her side. It was far more fun in his code, to be sitting by a pretty young woman, than to be crowded with the fellows over there. They were envying him he knew, and he leaned back in enjoyment of his unlooked-for position.