“Don’t forget,” my wife called after him, with a ready invention not lost on his quick intelligence, “that you’re going to the concert with us after tea. Eight o’clock, remember.”
“You may be sure I shall remember that,” he returned gaily.
IX
The countenances of the ladies fell instantly when he was gone. “Mrs. March,” said Mrs. Deering, with a nervous tremor, “did Mr. March get us those rooms at the Grand Union?”
“No—no,” my wife began, and she made a little pause, as if to gather plausibility. “The Grand Union was very full, and he thought that at the States—”
“Because,” said Mrs. Deering, “I don’t know as we shall trouble him, after all. Mr. Deering isn’t very well, and I guess we have got to go home—”
“Go home!” Mrs. March echoed, and her voice was a tone-scene of a toppling hope and a widespread desolation. “Why, you mustn’t!”
“We must, I guess. It had begun to be very pleasant, and—I guess I have got to go. I can’t feel easy about him.”
“Why, of course,” Mrs. March now assented, and she waved her fan thoughtfully before her face. I knew what she was thinking of, and I looked at Miss Gage, who had involuntarily taken the pose and expression of the moment when I first saw her at the kiosk in Congress Park. “And Miss Gage?”
“Oh yes; I must go too,” said the girl wistfully, forlornly. She had tears in her voice, tears of despair and vexation, I should have said.