CHAPTER XXII
After Fred had gone out into the wilderness, and learned her lesson; after that long day in the cottage, when her mind had emptied itself of some of its own certainties, so that deep, primitive knowledges could flow into it, she took up life again in her own way. She went to her office, she exercised Zip, she accepted every invitation that came to her; but she got thin. "Scrawny," her grandmother called it. Also, she expended a good deal of money on a bridesmaid's dress—for something had happened! Happened, curiously enough, on the very afternoon when she was studying that hard page of Nature's book, all alone, in the empty cottage by the lake....
The very next morning Laura had burst into 15 Payton Street. "Swear not to tell," she said; and when Fred had sworn, the secret—glowing, wonderful! was told in two words:
"I'm engaged!"
Then came an ecstatic recital, ending with "I've decided on daffodil yellow for your dresses. Rather far ahead—for it isn't to be until the middle of December. But I think it's just as well to plan, don't you?"
"Of course it is," Fred agreed. ("Oh, if I only hadn't asked him!")
"Billy-boy will juggle out enough money for the finest satin going, for his only daughter; but you girls can have perfectly sweet flowered voile, over yellow charmeuse. I've a corking idea for your hats." Then she looked at Fred closely. "You're not a bit surprised; I believe you knew what was going to happen!"
Fred laughed non-committally. Laura herself had been so far from knowing what was going to happen, that Howard Maitland had to fairly pound it into her that he was in love with her! He had not meant to tell her so soon. It wouldn't be decent, he thought, remembering that night in the cottage. He hadn't meant to speak for at least a month. He was going to mark time, and forget that there had ever been a minute when Fred Payton had imagined she cared about him—"for, of course, that was all it amounted to," he told himself; "imagination!" There was more modesty than truth in his phrase, yet his conviction was sincere enough—"A girl like Fred couldn't really care for me. I'm not up to her!"