While lingering over that meal, Olive said, after they had talked of Madeline through three courses, "I think, by-the-by, that Doctor Vaughan expected to see you again before he went." If I were writing of impossible heroines, I might say that Claire looked conscious; but real women who are not all chalk and water, do not display their feelings so readily to their mothers and sisters. So Claire Keith looked up with the countenance of an astonished kitten. "To see me? What for?" "How should I know, if you don't?" smiling slightly. "And _how_ should I know?" carelessly. "Well, perhaps I was mistaken. But why have you kept your room all this afternoon?" "I have been packing. Please pass the marmalade." "Packing!" mechanically reaching out the required dainty. "Yes, packing. You don't think I came to spend the winter, do you?" "But this is so sudden." "Now, just listen, you unreasonable being!" assuming an air of grave admonition. "Don't you know that I have overstayed my time by almost a month?" "Yes, but--" "Well, don't you know that if I tell you beforehand that I am going, you always contrive excuses and hatch plots, to keep me at least three weeks longer?" "I plead guilty," laughed Olive. "Well, you see I have staid out my days of grace already. And knowing your failing, and feeling sure that I could not humor it, I have just taken advantage of you, and packed my trunks." "And you won't stay just one more little week?" Claire laughed gleefully. "What did I say? It is your old cry. Now, dear, be reasonable. Mamma wants me, and the boys want me. You have plenty of occupation just now. It will take you one-third of the time to keep me informed of all that happens." "Well," sighed Olive, "of course you must go sometime; but you don't mean to go to-morrow?" "I do, though." "What will Doctor Vaughan say?" "Whatever Doctor Vaughan pleases. I can't lose a day to say good-by to him, can I?" "But why didn't you tell him good-by to-day?" Claire looked up in some surprise. "Upon my word, I never thought of it." And she told the truth. She had thought only of how she could avoid another meeting. Olive looked puzzled. "And I supposed that you liked Doctor Vaughan," she said, after a moment's pause. "Why, and so I do; I was very careless. Olive, dear, pray make my adieus to him, and all the necessary excuses. I do like the doctor, and don't want him to think me rude." And Olive accepted the commission, and was deceived by it. For she, absorbed in her own fears and hopes, was not aware of the drama of love and cross purposes that was being enacted under her very eyes. When Clarence called, on the next day but one, he found, to his surprise and sorrow, that the bright face of the girl he loved so well was to smile upon him no more, at least for a time. Making his call an unusually brief one, he rode back to the city in a very grave and thoughtful mood. Or, rather, the gravity and thoughtfulness usual in him was tinged with sadness.