He looked up, so frankly surprised at her kindness that it hurt her all through.
"I want to be friends with you," she said impulsively. "Didn't you know it?"
They had halted at the foot of the stoop.
"I should think you could see how easy it would he for us to become friends," she said with pretty self-possession. But her heart was beating violently.
His pulses, too, were rapping out a message to his intelligence:
"You had better not go in," it ran. "You are not fit to go in.
You had better keep away from her. You know what will happen if
you don't."
As they entered the house her sister-in-law rose from the piano in the front parlour and came forward.
"Were you worried, dearest?" cried Ailsa gaily. "I really couldn't help it. And Mr. Berkley lost his hat, and I've brought him back to dinner."
CHAPTER VII
To Berkley the times were surcharged with agreeable agitation. A hullabaloo diverted him. He himself was never noisy; but agitated and noisy people always amused him.
Day after day the city's multi-coloured militia regiments passed through its echoing streets; day after day Broadway resounded with the racket of their drums. Rifles, chasseurs, zouaves, foot artillery, pioneers, engineers, rocket batteries, the 79th Highlanders, dismounted lancers of the 69th and dragoons of the 8th—every heard-of and unheard-of unnecessary auxiliary to a respectable regiment of state infantry, mustered for inspection and marched away in polychromatic magnificence. Park, avenue, and square shrilled with their windy fifes; the towering sides of the transports struck back the wild music of their bands; Castle William and Fort Hamilton saluted them from the ferries to the Narrows; and, hoarse with cheering, the people stared through dim eyes till the last stain of smoke off Sandy Hook vanished seaward. All of which immensely diverted Berkley.