“Why should I have stayed so long? Why shouldn’t I go away? Why—why—lots of ‘whys.’ ”
“Don’t you enjoy being with us?”
“Of course I do,” she answered, no sign of the pain the question caused her showing in her tone, though she ached to be able to tell him how exquisite was the torture to which he was putting her. “Of course I do. I did think you knew that; you’re not the sort of man who needs to be told everything every day.”
“Well, I won’t make use of an old friend’s privilege of worrying you. But, look here, when’ll you come to see us again?”
“When Aggy asks me, if she doesn’t ask me too soon.”
The words sprang to her lips in such haste that she could not stay them. She repented them bitterly, for she realized at once that they might lead to disaster for Agatha, who might refuse to ask her again to visit her; who might, rendered brave by jealousy, oppose her husband’s wish, who might, in a moment of anger, give her reason for so doing, thereby perhaps making an inevitable breach in her married happiness. But the words being said, any attempt to withdraw them might stimulate dangerous questioning on his part.
“When Aggy asks you!” he answered, throwing his head up and laughing gayly. “Well, you may as well not go away at all, then. Does she know you’re going to-morrow?”
“I told her yesterday.”
“Funny she didn’t tell me. What did she say?”
“Asked me to stay.”