Sylvia, bubbling over with sociability after her evening at the Doanes', was surprised, on reaching the Homestead, to find a lamp set in the window and the living-room empty. Ten o'clock was not late and yet both occupants of the house had gone upstairs.
This was unusual.
She wondered at it.
Certainly Marcia could not be asleep at so early an hour; nor Heath, either. In fact, beneath the latter's door she could see a streak of light, and could hear him moving about inside.
Marcia's room, on the other hand, was still. Once, as she paused listening, wondering whether she dared knock and go in for a bedtime chat, she thought she detected a stifled sound and thus encouraged whispered the woman's name. No response came, however, and deciding she must have been mistaken she tiptoed away.
Having, therefore, no inkling of a change in the delightful relations that had for the past week prevailed, the atmosphere that greeted her when she came down the next morning was a shock.
Stanley Heath stood at the telephone talking to Elisha Winslow and on the porch outside were grouped his suit-case, overcoat and traveling rug. He himself was civil—nay, courteous—but was plainly ill at ease and had little except the most commonplace remarks to offer in way of conversation.
Marcia had not slept, as her pallor and the violet shadows beneath her eyes attested.
Sylvia could see that her duties as hostess of the breakfast table taxed her self-control almost to the breaking point and that only her pride and strong will-power prevented her from going to pieces.
Although the girl did not understand, she sensed Marcia's need of her and rushed valiantly into the breach—filling every awkward pause with her customary sparkling chatter.