"No; I only want to know you're glad."
"You wait; you shall have all the knowledge you feel you stand in need of."
"Herbert!"
CHAPTER XVII
[NORA GOES]
When Elaine brought back her head into the room, the window was closed, Mr. Nash had vanished; the young lady was in such a state of palpitation, that for some seconds she was incapable of continuing the operation of packing, conscious though she was of how time was pressing. Half-an-hour is not long. She was not yet fully dressed; it seemed that now she was to dress to meet her lover, to elope with him; if she had known that before she would have arrayed herself in some quite different garments. There was no time to change now; it was out of the question. Really, there was not time even to finish packing properly; her things would have to be squashed in anyhow; if she could get them in at all she would have to be content. There was one comfort, she would buy herself an entirely new outfit when she had once got clear away. Herbert need not think--no one need think--that she was going to do without a trousseau; she was not. She was going to have a proper trousseau; a complete trousseau. Only it seemed that in her case the various articles would have to be purchased after marriage instead of before; but she would have them.
While such thoughts chased themselves through her excited little head, she returned to the process of packing with still greater zeal than before. Cherished garments received unceremonious treatment; if they could have felt they would have wondered why their mistress was using them as she had never done before. Rolled up anyhow; squeezed in anywhere; no regard paid to frills or dainty trimmings; plainly Elaine's one and only desire was to get her things in somewhere, somehow. Yet as if it was not enough to have to pack against time, she was not allowed to pack in peace; she was doomed to interruption. Just as the first box seemed full as it could hold, and she was wondering if her weight would be enough to induce the hasp to meet the lock, there came a tapping at the bedroom door. The sound was to her an occasion of irritation; her voice suggested it.
"Now who's that?"
"It is I."
It was a voice she knew--at that moment it seemed to her--too well. So entirely was this young woman a creature of mood that there was only room in her for one mood at a time, and while that possessed her she forgot everything else; before she heard that voice she had forgotten Nora. And it was Nora who stood on the other side of the door. Elaine's selfish little soul shook with fear when the sound of the voice without recalled her friend's existence to her recollection.