She stood beside the window, pained and doubtful how to offer further comfort, and wondering if it might not be a good time to speak a word in her stepson’s favor.
Fortune favored her, for just then she saw him in front of the house in his splendid new sleigh, with his pair of Kentucky thoroughbreds in their glittering, gold-mounted harness. She cried out eagerly:
“Oh, Eva, dear, the sun has come out, and here is Reggie with his new Kentucky grays to take you for a sleigh ride! Dry your eyes quickly, before he comes in!”
Eva dabbed her eyes with her tiny lace handkerchief, but they were still dim with the tears she had shed when the young man entered through the heavy portières, tall, elegant, handsome, in his long fur-lined overcoat.
He greeted them with effusion, for he was radiant with good spirits, having decided to put his fate to the test to-day, scarcely dreaming of a refusal.
“You will come with me for a spin through the park, will you not, Eva? It is the finest day I ever saw—crisp underfoot and bright overhead! It will put new life in you. Come, we must not lose a minute of this glorious opportunity!”
“Go, dear, and get ready. It will brighten your spirits,” added her aunt, so eagerly that she did not know how to refuse.
She went slowly to her room, but while she was changing her silken gown for a cloth one, and wrapping herself warmly in a sealskin cloak, she was thinking ruefully:
“If I go I cannot keep him from proposing to me! He will be sure to seize upon the opportunity. I have evaded him so long! And I grieve to wound his heart by a refusal, but I had as well have it over and done with, since it is inevitable, sooner or later.”
With a sigh of resignation she went down to her handsome suitor, wondering at her own indifference to him, and wishing she could like him well enough to marry him and please everybody.