The color seeped out of her golden-olive face and left it as nearly white as it could ever be, and she drew her hand away. M’liss’ Tolliver was coming noisily up the stairs, very vocal in her grief.
“Let’s go down,” Peter Parker whispered. “There are a million things I must tell you, and ask you, and——”
Glen shook her head. He had asked her no question in words, but the downright truth of her was beyond any mincing maidenliness.
“No,” she said clearly, “I will stay here. It—is no use. You see, I promised my father when he was dying. I am going to marry Luke Manders next month—the day I am twenty years old.”
Mrs. Eugenia Parker rang the Darrow doorbell an hour later and Glen herself admitted her.
“My son told me,” the Federation President began at once, as if fearing she might be denied admission, “of the death of the little girl. He is greatly grieved, for he was deeply interested in her.”
“I know he was,” said Glen gently.
Mrs. Parker looked rather startled at her tone. “I came to see if I might be of service to you.”
“Thank you, no,” she said, still more gently. “Everything has been done. Her aunt was here, but she has gone home again. I asked them to leave her here.”