It was too bad. I was sure Miss Haviland had forgotten him. I didn’t think—and I don’t think now—that she wilfully omitted to send him an invitation. It was only that her cup was too full to remember his small, meek existence. I wondered if I dared remind her. I was pretty busy all day, however. And I had to get dressed and out by four, as I hadn’t posted my daily theme yet, and the time would be up at half-past. But I thought, even so late as then, that I’d better go by way of the New Gainsborough, and if things seemed propitious, drop a hint to her, for I felt free to say almost anything after my experience of the other evening.
Things weren’t propitious, though, I can tell you.
I was still some distance from the building—it was about fifteen minutes’ walk, I should say—when I heard somebody calling to me in a distressed voice. I looked ’round behind me, and to the right and left; and when finally I walked ahead I saw Miss Haviland fly out through the swinging door of the New Gainsborough and stand there at the top of the high granite stoop, beckoning frantically. She had on a mauve-colored kimono, which she was holding together rather desperately in front, and her hair was uncaught behind and streaming in the wind.
“Edith! Edith!” she called out. “Quick!”
She had never called me by my first name before. What could it be?—at this late hour, too? She waited a second to be sure I was coming, then dodged back under cover.
I ran. I sprang up the granite steps.
“See if you see anybody!” she commanded, breathlessly, peeping out at me.
“No, I don’t,” I said, looking. “There’s nobody, Miss Haviland.”
“But there must be,” she insisted. “Look again! Look everywhere!”
I did so. “There isn’t, Miss Haviland,” I said back through the opening. “Why won’t you believe me?”