The smile left Dr. Carter’s lips, but he said nothing––merely sat looking at her in his grave way.
Here was to be another period, which Miss 407 Willis could look back upon as one of temporary inability to find words. She started to leave, furious with herself for her inaptness, and instead of going she paused and turned back.
Dr. Carter had risen; he was standing as she had left him. She drew a card from her cardcase.
“You may think what you please of me, Dr. Carter,” she said with sudden impulse, extending the card and meeting his look steadily, “but I would be glad if you were to call.”
It seemed to take him a long time to read the address. All at once his hands were trembling, and when he looked up the expression in the gray eyes brought a swift tide of color to the girl’s face, where it deepened, and deepened, until she tingled from head to foot, and a mist obscured her vision.
“Nothing in all this world would give me more pleasure,” said the man.
The girl turned and fled.
That very evening Dr. Carter availed himself of the invitation. Singularly enough, since she had been hoping all the afternoon that he would 408 come, Clementine Willis was frightened when his name was announced. Her hand was shaking when he took it in his; but there was not a trace of expression on his face.
Miss Willis realized, for the first time, that she had been horribly brazen––or, at least, she told herself that she had been––and as a consequence, she was wretchedly ill at ease. Her distress was in marked contrast with the man’s self-possession, which amounted almost to indifference. There was no spark visible of the fire which had flashed earlier in the day. It was as though he had steeled himself to remain invulnerable throughout the call.
And the usually composed girl prattled aimlessly, voicing platitudes, conventionalities, banalities, inanities––anything to gain time and to cover her embarrassment: to all of which the man listened in sober silence, watching her steadily.