I had lived for four months the roughest of lives, and the room brought before me so sharply the contrast between my estate and the grandeur and elegance in which Dorothy lived, that my spirits fell as I looked about me. In front of me was a vase of flowers, and beside them on the table lay a note “To Miss Manners, in Arlington Street,” and sealed with a ducal crest. I was unconsciously turning it over, when something impelled me to look around. There, erect in the doorway, stood Dolly, her eyes so earnestly fixed upon me that I dropped the letter with a start. A faint colour mounted to her crown of black hair.
“And so you have come, Richard,” she said. Her voice was low, and tho' there was no anger in it, the tone seemed that of reproach. I wondered whether she thought the less of me for coming.
“Can you blame me for wishing to see you before I leave, Dolly?” I cried, and crossed quickly over to her.
But she drew a step backward.
“Then it is true that you are going,” said she, this time with a plain note of coldness.
“I must, Dorothy.”
“When?”
“As soon as I can get passage.”
She passed me and seated herself on the lounge, leaving me to stand like a lout before her, ashamed of my youth and of the clumsiness of my great body.
“Ah, Richard,” she laughed, “confess to your old play mate! I should like to know how many young men of wealth and family would give up the pleasures of a London season were there not a strong attraction in Maryland.”