“I hardly know what to say,” she began. “I—I—you know I said the presiding elder was at our house, and—”
“Oh, I understand,” broke in Alan; “that's all right. Of course, use your own—”
“No, I must be plain with you,” she broke in, raising a pair of helpless, tortured eyes to his; “you will not think I had anything to do with it. In fact, my heart is almost broken. I'm very, very unhappy.”
He was still totally at sea as to the cause of her strange distress. “Perhaps you'd rather not tell me at all,” he said, sympathetically; his tone never had been so tender. “You need not, you know.”
“But it's a thing I could not keep from you long, anyway,” she said, tremulously. “In fact, it is due you—an explanation, I mean. Oh, Alan, papa has taken up the idea that we—that we like each other too much, and—”
The life and soul seemed to leave Alan' s face.
“I understand,” he heard himself saying; “he does not want me to visit you any more.”
She made no reply; he saw her catch a deep breath, and her eyes went down to her flowers. The music struck up. The mulatto leader stood waving his fiddle and calling for “the grand march” in loud, melodious tones. There was a scrambling for partners; the young men gave their left arms to the ladies and merrily dragged them to their places.
“I hope you do not blame me—that you don't think that I—” but the clatter and clamor ingulfed her words.
“No, not at all,” he told her; “but it's awful—simply awful I I know you are a true friend, and that's some sort of comfort.”