The tears fell for very weariness and bewilderment. What beside was there to shed tears about? She was so weary that she had forgotten.
A laugh in the hall below; the sound of a scuffle, another laugh, and the closing of the street door.
Those two children!
Dinah burst into the room, still laughing. “Why, Tessa! All through! You look as if you wanted to pack yourself up, too,” she cried in a breezy voice. “The candle is almost burnt down.”
“No matter. Don’t get another.”
“Your voice sounds as if you were sick. Mother has been expecting you to be too sick to go.”
“I shall not be sick,” rising, and dropping the lid of her trunk. “Tell me about the night you overheard Gus talking to father on the piazza.”
“I did tell you, didn’t I? He did not mind because John came tonight; didn’t you hear him tease me? About that night? Oh, I was asleep, and they were on the piazza; of course I don’t know how long they had been talking, nor what suggested it, but I heard him say,—really I’ve forgotten just what, it was so long ago,—but father said that he was so glad and happy about it, or it meant that. I suppose I may have missed some of it. Poor old Gus said that he knew I did not care for any one else. Isn’t it touching? Poor fellow! And I didn’t then. I never should if I hadn’t gone away and found John. Lucky for me, wasn’t it? Gus never looked at me as he did at you tonight, anyway; I guess he’s transferring.”
Long after midnight Tessa fell asleep; her last thought shaping itself thus:
“I can not reason myself into loving or not loving, any more than I can reason the sun into shining or not shining.”