Then there was silence for a while. Sylvia glanced sidewise, timidly and adoringly, at Richard's smoothly shaven face, pale as marble in the moonlight, and waited, her heart throbbing.
“I've been coming here a good many years,” Richard observed finally, and his own voice had a solemn tremor.
Sylvia made an almost inarticulate assent.
“I've been thinking lately,” said Richard; then he paused. They could hear the great clock out in the kitchen tick. Sylvia waited, her very soul straining, although shrinking at the same time, to hear.
“I've been thinking lately,” said Richard again, “that—maybe—it would be wise for—us both to—make some different arrangement.”
Sylvia bent her head low. Richard paused for the second time. “I have always meant—” he began again, but just then the clock in the kitchen struck the first stroke of ten. Richard caught his breath and arose quickly. Never in his long courtship had he remained as late as that at Sylvia Crane's. It was as if a life-long habit struck as well as the clock, and decided his times for him.
“I must be going,” said he, speaking against the bell notes. Sylvia arose without a word of dissent, but Richard spoke as if she had remonstrated.
“I'll come again next Sunday night,” said he, apologetically.
Sylvia followed him to the door. They bade each other good-night decorously, with never a parting kiss, as they had done for years. Richard went out of sight down the white gleaming road, and she went in and to bed, with her heart in a great tumult of expectation and joyful fear.