"I've taken passage for the 6th, that is a week from to-day, and I don't know when we shall return—very possibly not for several years."
There was a pause, while Missy got her voice steady and staggered up from under the blow.
"I've been unlucky this summer, as I said, and seem to have managed to give you offense by everything I did."
Now, no woman likes to be told she's not sweet-tempered, even if she knows she is a spitfire, and this nettled Missy sharply, and steadied her voice considerably.
"I am sorry," she said, "that you think me so unamiable, but I don't exactly know why you should think it well to tell me of it."
"I haven't told you that you were unamiable; I have told you that I hadn't been able to do the thing that pleased you, though Heaven knows I've tried hard enough."
"It's a pity that I'm such a dragon. Poor little Jay, even, is afraid of me by this time, isn't he?"
"I don't know about Jay. I'm rather stupid about things, I'm afraid. Women perplex me very much."
Missy drew the scarf that she had picked up in the hall as she came out, about her shoulders, and beat her foot upon the gravel as if she were cold and a trifle tired of Mr. Andrews' sources of perplexity.
"What I wanted to say," he went on, "is, that I thank you always for what you've been to the children."