"Yes. 'Prevented last moment. Longing for you, expecting you. Love from
both.' Don't you _see_, the poor darling, that she couldn't face it?"
"No, I don't." He waited. "Do you mean to go to her immediately?"
"It will be too late to catch a train this evening; but I shall take
the first to-morrow morning." She considered a moment. "'Perhaps it's
better. I need a talk with Susy first. She's to meet me at the dock, and
I'll take her straight back to the hotel with me."
As she developed this plan, she had the sense that Ide was still
thoughtfully, even gravely, considering her. When she ceased, he
remained silent a moment; then he said almost ceremoniously: "If your
talk with Miss Suffern doesn't last too late, may I come and see you
when it's over? I shall be dining at my club, and I'll call you up at
about ten, if I may. I'm off to Chicago on business to-morrow morning,
and it would be a satisfaction to know, before I start, that your
cousin's been able to reassure you, as I know she will."
He spoke with a shy deliberateness that, even to Mrs. Lidcote's troubled
perceptions, sounded a long-silenced note of feeling. Perhaps the
breaking down of the barrier of reticence between them had released
unsuspected emotions in both. The tone of his appeal moved her curiously
and loosened the tight strain of her fears.
"Oh, yes, come--do come," she said, rising. The huge threat of New York
was imminent now, dwarfing, under long reaches of embattled masonry, the
great deck she stood on and all the little specks of life it carried.
One of them, drifting nearer, took the shape of her maid, followed by
luggage-laden stewards, and signing to her that it was time to go below.
As they descended to the main deck, the throng swept her against Mrs.
Lorin Boulger's shoulder, and she heard the ambassadress call out to
some one, over the vexed sea of hats: "So sorry! I should have been
delighted, but I've promised to spend Sunday with some friends at
Lenox."