She showed her disappointment at that; looked almost aggrieved. Then she laughed out in spite of herself.
“Hurrell Oaks didn’t expect a party,” she declared; “he didn’t, at all events, mean to have one. He didn’t—she was right about that—‘want to see many of us.’ He didn’t want to see anybody. He just wanted to do his manners. He couldn’t decently get out of that much. And, although he may have been asked to come at exactly five—nobody, of course, knows how his invitation was worded—he reached Newfair earlier, perhaps unintentionally so, and came instead at four, and knocked politely for admittance. But Mrs. Edgerton’s servants, unfortunately, hadn’t arrived, and Miss Haviland was, as she herself admitted, taking a bath. She was no doubt actually in the tub when Hurrell Oaks slipped his card under the door.”
[IN THE OPEN CODE]
By BURTON KLINE
From The Stratford Journal
Copyright, 1918, by The Stratford Journal.
Copyright, 1919, by Burton Kline.
The day’s work was finished and the entire job well started. I felt sure we should meet old Bankard’s wishes fully. The rare old Virginia manor and its wooded park were going to look again as the original designer meant them to appear. Gordon, I know, agreed with me—Gordon, who was to restore the house as I restored the grounds.
That evening he and I were sitting on a rusted iron bench in a corner of the park that looked off over the hills, watching the summer dusk steal up the eastern sky. I still wanted to talk of the day’s accomplishment, but Gordon seemed to have grown—I was going to say dreamy, but he was watchful instead.
Presently he drew out his watch and said, “In just about four minutes you will hear it.”