Ethel went. She returned, of course, from time to time, whenever she could think of a new excuse or a new suggestion; but she was always worsted.
Muriel did not descend to dinner that night until she was sure that Mr. Newberry, whose deterrent attitude she instinctively counted upon, was there with her aunt. She contrived to be left alone not once with Ethel. It was the habit of the members of the Newberry household to breakfast together only by chance, which meant that they generally ate separately. When Thursday's luncheon was announced, Muriel sent down word that she had a headache.
"What do you do when a girl locks her door on you?" asked Ethel of her husband.
"They never lock their doors on me," said Preston.
"Do be serious. What in the world do you make of all this?"
"My dear," answered Newberry, "the only thing I am bothered about is what you may already have made of it. I'm afraid you have made a mess."
"But, Preston——"
"There is nothing to be done now but to wait, my dear."
So it befell that when, exactly at nine o'clock that evening, Stainton's card was sent up to Miss Stannard, Miss Stannard's guardians, one of whom stayed long in the library with ears vainly intent, were as much at sea regarding their ward's decision as was Stainton himself.
Muriel's own emotional condition was no more enlightened. Like all young people, she had had her visions of romance, and, like the visions of most young people, hers had been uninstructed, misdirected, misapplied. All women, it has been said, begin life by having in their inmost heart a self-created Prince Charming, who proves the strongest rival that their destined husbands have to endure. Such a prince was as much Muriel's as he is other girls'! She had created him unknowingly from the books she had read, from the pictures she had seen, out of blue sky and sunshine and the soft first breezes of Spring: the stuff of dreams. But she was eighteen and no longer in school, and Stainton had given her a glimpse of the great happy thing that she accepted as life.