"Good-night," replied Smith, thoughtfully.
CHAPTER XX
In the Deerfield Street apartment a young man stood waiting with perhaps less calm than was strictly Oriental. This could no doubt be attributed to the fact that he anticipated with distinct pleasure the coming of somebody, while a true Oriental never really anticipates anything—or if he does, the thought gives him no delight.
But Smith, as he sat in the straight-backed chair, felt very glad indeed that he was about to see the somebody for whom he was waiting. The time which had elapsed since his most recent trip to Boston had somehow gone with unconscionable slowness, and the medium of the mails had proved an alternative means of communication only measurably compensating. He had, in short, discovered that a great deal of his life was concerned with the girl whose footsteps were now to be heard advancing down the hall.
"I'm awfully glad to see you," said Miss Maitland.
"And I you," returned the visitor; and if the words carried only the conventionalities, each found a way to make them more significant.
"Mother will be in to welcome you," the girl continued. "It's a compliment she doesn't pay everyone," she added, with a smile. "She doesn't care, as a rule, for young gentlemen visitors. By the way, we have plenty of time, have we not, before we need to start?"
"Fully twenty minutes," he answered. "I guess I'm absurdly early, but I thought I ought to give the young lady an opportunity to get acquainted with me before starting out alone with me in a taxi."
"Are we ever acquainted with any one?" the girl parried; and a moment later the conversation shifted to meet the entrance of Mrs. Maitland.
Shortly before eight o'clock they set forth for the theater. It was the evening of the twenty-first of February, and the following day, Sunday, was also a holiday in memory of a great man. It was of him that they chanced to speak, almost on entering their conveyance.