"But 'love has eyes.'" The words were light and she meant them lightly. And she went away laughing.
But Roger did not laugh.
And when Mary came to look for him he was gone.
And up-stairs, his evening stripped of its glamour, he told himself that he had been a fool! The world would not end to-night. He had to live the appointed length of his days, through all the dreary years.
CHAPTER VI
In Which Mary Brings Christmas to the Tower Rooms; and in Which Roger Declines a Privilege for Which Porter Pleads.
On Christmas Eve, Mary and Susan Jenks brought up to Roger a little tree. It was just a fir plume, but it was gay with tinsel and spicy with the fragrance of the woods, and it was topped by a wee wax angel.
In vain Mary and Barry and even Aunt Isabelle had urged Roger to join their merrymaking downstairs. Aunt Frances, having delayed her trip abroad until January, was coming; and except for Leila and General Dick and Porter Bigelow, it was to be strictly a family affair.
But Roger had refused. "I'm not one of you," he had told Mary. "I'm a bee, not a butterfly, and I shouldn't have joined you on Thanksgiving night. When you're alone, if I may, I'll come down—but please—not with your guests."