"Aren't you coming, Em?" Susan had asked, finding her.
"I--I don't believe I will," Emily said lightly, without turning. "Go on, don't wait for me! It's nothing," she had persisted, when Susan questioned her, "Nothing at all! At least," the truth came out at last, "at least, I think it looks ODD. So now go on, without me," said Emily.
"What looks odd?"
"Nothing does, I tell you! Please go on."
"You mean, three girls and two men," Susan said slowly.
Emily assented by silence.
"Well, then, you go and I'll stay," Susan said, in annoyance, "but it's perfect rubbish!"
"No, you go," Emily said, pettishly.
Susan went, perhaps six feet; turned back.
"I wish you'd go," she said, in dissatisfaction.
"If I did," Emily said, in a low, quiet tone, still looking out of the window, "it would be simply because of the looks of things!"
"Well, go because of the looks of things then!" Susan agreed cheerfully.
"No, but you see," Emily said eagerly, turning around, "it DOES look odd--not to me, of course! But mean odd to other people if you go and I don't-don't you think so, Sue?"
"Ye-es," drawled Susan, with a sort of bored and fexasperated sigh. And she went to her own room to write letters, not disappointed, but irritated so thoroughly that she could hardly control her thoughts.
At five o'clock, dressed in a childish black velvet gown--her one pretty house gown--with the deep embroidered collar and cuffs that were so becoming to her, and with her hair freshly brushed and swept back simply from her face, she came downstairs for a cup of tea.
And in the library, sunk into a deep chair before the fire, she found Stephen Bocqueraz, his head resting against the back of the chair, his knees crossed and his finger-tips fitted together. Susan's heart began to race.
He got up and they shook hands, and stood for too long a moment looking at each other. The sense of floating--floating--losing her anchorage--began to make Susan's head spin. She sat down, opposite him, as he took his chair again, but her breath was coming too short to permit of speech.
"Upon my word I thought the woman said that you were all out!" said Bocqueraz, appreciative eyes upon her, "I hardly hoped for a piece of luck like this!"
"Well, they are, you know. I'm not, strictly speaking, a Saunders," smiled Susan.