"But in a little while, when I am safely out of the way—"
"Your going or coming can make no difference. I can say in all sincerity that I wish you would stay. I think it would mean much to Phil if you should. I hope you will change your decision. You must understand that so far as Mr. Kirkwood and I are concerned there is no reason whatever for your going."
Lois drew a line in the rug with the point of her parasol, her head bent in an attitude of reflection.
"As for Tom and me," she said, meeting Nan's eyes after an instant, "it's only right for you to know from me that he has given me another chance. He has offered to try me again! It was for Phil's sake. It was generous—it was noble of him! But"—she shrugged her shoulders—"I've caused enough misery. Not in a thousand years would I do it!"
Nan nodded, but made no reply. It was enough that she had established her own position, and nothing that Lois could add really mattered. And Lois, with her nice sense of values, her feeling for a situation, knew that the interview was at an end.
A copy of the May number of "Journey's End" lay on a little stand with other magazines. Her hand rested upon it a moment, as though she thus referred everything back to Phil, but even this evoked nothing further from Nan.
Lois walked to the door, murmuring nothings about the weather, the charm of the flowering yards in the Lane.
At the door she caught Nan's hands, smiled into her eyes, and said, with all her charm of tone and manner:—
"You will kiss me, won't you!"