“When will you send me out?” asked Atterbury at last with his brilliant smile.
“Come to me to-morrow at ten,” said Nichols, giving his hand to the other, who grasped it silently. “Mind, I don’t promise anything.”
“No, we don’t promise anything,” agreed the excited Callender.
“No,” said Atterbury jubilantly, “that’s all right. We’ve got a great future before us, my friends.”
As he wheeled around he caught sight of Harrington, whom he had momentarily forgotten.
“Ah,” he said airily, “do either of you own any stock in our host’s Company? It may be just as well for you to investigate a little; you may find that as the treasurer he’s been speculating with the funds. I’ll give you my reasons for this also—to-morrow.”
“Come,” he said to Agnes, “we must be going.” As they stepped out once more into the darkness, the wind nearly hurled them off their feet; a million icy points of snow pricked and stung the face. She clung to him, and he put his arm around her and swept her through the storm as a lover might his bride, unknowing of it.
Yet for all that warm clasp, she subtly felt the severance of his thought from her, and when they were safely landed in the hall, she said nervously,
“What was that I heard you saying to Mr. Nichols? You’re not going to leave me!”
Her tone had in it the universal protest of womankind, to whom the bodily desertion is less than the spiritual one that makes it possible.