“Lydia!” cried her aunt. “Look at me!” Lydia turned her head. “Are you going to be hard with him?”
“I don't know what he's coming for,” said Lydia dishonestly.
“But if he's coming for what you hope?”
“I don't hope for anything.”
“But you did. Don't be severe. You're terrible when you're severe.”
“I will be just.”
“Oh, no, you mustn't, my dear. It won't do at all to be just with men, poor fellows. Kiss me, Lydia!” She pulled her down, and kissed her. When the girl had got as far as the door, “Lydia, Lydia!” she called after her. Lydia turned. “Do you realize what dress you've got on?” Lydia looked down at her robe; it was the blue flannel yachting-suit of the Aroostook, which she had put on for convenience in taking care of her aunt. “Isn't it too ridiculous?” Mrs. Erwin meant to praise the coincidence, not to blame the dress. Lydia smiled faintly for answer, and the next moment she stood at the parlor door.
Staniford, at her entrance, turned from looking out of the window and saw her as in his dream, with her hand behind her, pushing the door to; but the face with which she looked at him was not like the dead, sad face of his dream. It was thrillingly alive, and all passions were blent in it,—love, doubt, reproach, indignation; the tears stood in her eyes, but a fire burnt through the tears. With his first headlong impulse to console, explain, deplore, came a thought that struck him silent at sight of her. He remembered, as he had not till then remembered, in all his wild longing and fearing, that there had not yet been anything explicit between them; that there was no engagement; and that he had upon the face of things, at least, no right to offer her more than some formal expression of regret for not having been able to keep his promise to come sooner. While this stupefying thought gradually filled his whole sense to the exclusion of all else, he stood looking at her with a dumb and helpless appeal, utterly stunned and wretched. He felt the life die out of his face and leave it blank, and when at last she spoke, he knew that it was in pity of him, or contempt of him. “Mrs. Erwin is not well,” she said, “and she wished me—”
But he broke in upon her: “Oh, don't talk to me of Mrs. Erwin! It was you I wanted to see. Are you well? Are you alive? Do you—” He stopped as precipitately as he began; and after another hopeless pause, he went on piteously: “I don't know where to begin. I ought to have been here five days ago. I don't know what you think of me, or whether you have thought of me at all; and before I can ask I must tell you why I wanted to come then, and why I come now, and why I think I must have come back from the dead to see you. You are all the world to me, and have been ever since I saw you. It seems a ridiculously unnecessary thing to say, I have been looking and acting and living it so long; but I say it, because I choose to have you know it, whether you ever cared for me or not. I thought I was coming here to explain why I had not come sooner, but I needn't do that unless—unless—” He looked at her where she still stood aloof, and he added: “Oh, answer me something, for pity's sake! Don't send me away without a word. There have been times when you wouldn't have done that!”
“Oh, I did care for you!” she broke out. “You know I did—”