"Where's Harry?" was Mr. Gortlandt's first question.
"He's gone to the country, to mother. It was so hot this last day or two, I've sent him out, with Miss Colton. I'm going Saturday. Sit down."
"I miss him," said her visitor, "more than I thought I could. I've learned more in these seven years than I thought there was to know. Or in the last two perhaps, since I've found you again."
She looked at him with a little still smile, but there was a puzzled expression behind it, as of one whose mind was not made up.
They sat in the wide window of a top floor apartment, awning-shaded. A fresh breeze blew in upon them, and the city dust blew in upon them also, lying sandy on the broad sill.
She made little wavy lines in it with one finger—
"These windows ought to be shut tight, I suppose, and the blinds, and the curtains. Then we should be cleaner."
"As to furniture," he agreed, "but not as to our lungs."
"I don't know about that," she said; "we get plenty of air—but see what's in it."
"A city is a dirty place at the best; but Mary—I didn't come to consider the ethics of the dust—how much longer must I wait?" he asked, after a little pause. "Isn't two years courting, re-courting—enough? Haven't I learned my lesson yet?"