Part 218 (1/2)

”No? But you will. I have known lots of people who said they never would change. They all did. No, you need not protest. I believe in you now, or I should not be drinking tea with you. But you must be tired of an old woman's gossip. Evelyn has gone out for a walk; she didn't know. I expect her any minute. Ah, I think that is her ring. I will let her in. There is nothing so hateful as a surprise.”

She turned and gave Philip her hand, and perhaps she was sincere--she had a habit of being so when it suited her interests--when she said, ”There are no bygones, my friend.”

Philip waited, his heart beating a hundred to the minute. He heard greetings and whisperings in the pa.s.sage-way, and then--time seemed to stand still--the door opened and Evelyn stood on the threshold, radiant from her walk, her face flushed, the dainty little figure poised in timid expectation, in maidenly hesitation, and then she stepped forward to meet his advance, with welcome in her great eyes, and gave him her hand in the old-fas.h.i.+oned frankness.

”I am so glad to see you.”

Philip murmured something in reply and they were seated.

That was all. It was so different from the meeting as Philip had a hundred times imagined it.

”It has been very long,” said Philip, who was devouring the girl with his eyes very long to me.”

”I thought you had been very busy,” she replied, demurely. Her composure was very irritating.

”If you thought about it at all, Miss Mavick.”

”That is not like you, Mr. Burnett,” Evelyn replied, looking up suddenly with troubled eyes.

”I didn't mean that,” said Philip, moving uneasily in his chair, ”I--so many things have happened. You know a person can be busy and not happy.”

”I know that. I was not always happy,” said the girl, with the air of making a confession. ”But I liked to hear from time to time of the success of my friends,” she added, ingenuously. And then, quite inconsequently, ”I suppose you have news from Rivervale?”

Yes, Philip heard often from Alice, and he told the news as well as he could, and the talk drifted along--how strange it seemed!--about things in which neither of them felt any interest at the moment.

Was there no way to break the barrier that the little brown girl had thrown around herself? Were all women, then, alike in parrying and fencing? The talk went on, friendly enough at last, about a thousand things. It might have been any afternoon call on a dear friend. And at length Philip rose to go.

”I hope I may see you again, soon.”

”Of course,” said Evelyn, cheerfully. ”I am sure father will be delighted to see you. He enjoys so little now.”

He had taken both her hands to say good-by, and was looking hungrily into her eyes.

”I can't go so. Evelyn, you know, you must know, I love you.”

And before the girl comprehended him he had drawn her to him and pressed his lips upon hers.

The girl started back as if stung, and looked at him with flas.h.i.+ng eyes.

”What have you done, what have you done to me?”

Her eyes were clouded, and she put her hands to her face, trembling, and then with a cry, as of a soul born into the world, threw herself upon him, her arms around his neck--

”Philip, Philip, my Philip!”

XXVII

Perhaps Philip's announcement of his good-fortune to Alice and to Celia was not very coherent, but his meaning was plain. Perhaps he was conscious that the tidings would not increase the cheerfulness of Celia's single-handed struggle for the ideal life; at least, he would rather write than tell her face to face.