“Not having seen them myself, I must reserve judgment,” Griswold remarked, and the blue serge suit flung out of the room.
Presently another figure darkened the entrance, and the coloured servant whom Griswold had seen attending Miss Osborne on the train from Atlanta swept into the reception-room, and grandly ignoring his presence, sat down in a chair nearest the closed door of the inner chamber. Griswold felt that this was encouraging, as implying some link between the governor and his domestic household, and he was about to ask the coloured woman if she knew the business hours of the office when the closed door opened and Miss Osborne appeared on the threshold. The coloured woman rose, and Griswold, who happened to be facing the door when it swung open with such startling suddenness, stared an instant and bowed profoundly.
“I beg your pardon, but I wish very much to see Governor Osborne or his secretary.”
Miss Osborne, in white, trailing a white parasol in her hand, and with white roses in her belt, still stood half withdrawn inside the private office.
“I am very sorry that Governor Osborne and his secretary are both absent,” she answered, and the two eyed each other gravely. Griswold felt that the brown eyes into which he looked had lately known tears; but she held her head high, with a certain defiance, even.
“That is unfortunate. I stopped here last night on purpose to see him, and now I fear that I must leave”—and he smiled the Griswold smile, which was one of the secrets of his popularity at the university—“I must leave Columbia in a very few minutes.”
“The office does not keep very early hours,” remarked the girl, “but some one will certainly be here in a moment. I am sorry you have had to wait.”
She had not changed her position, and Griswold rather hoped she would not, for the door framed her perfectly, and the sunlight from the inner windows emphasized the whiteness of the snowy gown she wore. Her straw hat was shaped like a soldier’s campaign hat, with sides pinned up, the top dented, and a single feather thrust into the side.
“It was not I,” said Griswold, “who so rudely shook the door. I beg that you will acquit me of that violence.”
The girl did not, however, respond to his smile. She poked the floor with her parasol a moment, then raised her head and asked,—