“No, dear,” she answered. “I don’t expect to hear.” But he saw that she was nervous and distrait; and he knew by her unwonted interest in the mail that she was all the time hoping to get some word from him.
When it came to handling any affair with Corydon, Thyrsis was a poor diplomatist. He would tell himself that this or that should be kept from her for the present; but the secrecy always irked him—his impulse was to talk things out with her, to go hand in hand with her to face the facts of their life. So now, in this case; one afternoon he settled her comfortably in a hammock, and sat beside her and took her hand.
“Corydon,” he said, “I’ve something I want to tell you. I’ve been having a correspondence with Mr. Harding.”
She started, and stared at him wildly. “What do you mean?” she gasped.
“I wrote him two letters,” said he.
“What about?”
“I wanted to explain about us,” he said; and then he told her what he had put in the first letter, and read Mr. Harding’s reply, which he had in his pocket.
“What do you make of it?” he asked.
“Tell me what your answer was!” cried Corydon, quickly; and so he began to outline his second letter.
But she did not let him get very far. “You wrote him that way about marriage!” she exclaimed.