“It sounds odd; in fact, I could scarcely believe it until I got his letter of explanation. I’ll show it to you. Here it is.”
I read James Orlebar Cloyster’s letter with care. It was not particularly long, but I wish I had a copy of it; for it is the finest work in an imaginative vein that has ever been penned.
“Masterly!” I exclaimed involuntarily.
“Yes, isn’t it?” she echoed. “Enables one to grasp thoroughly how the mistake managed to occur.”
“Has Eva seen it?”
“Yes.”
“I notice he mentions five years as being about the period——”
“Yes; it’s rather a long engagement, but, of course, she’ll wait, she loves him so.”
Eva now entered the room. When I caught sight of her I remembered I had pictured her crushed and humiliated. I had expected to gloat over a certain dewiness of her eyes, a patient drooping of her lips. I will say plainly there was nothing of that kind about Eva tonight.
She had decided to go to the ball as Peter Pan.