Harvard University -- Fiction; Love stories; Plantations -- Virginia -- Fiction; Youth -- Fiction
At four o’clock on the afternoon succeeding Everett’s tea Phillip
climbed the Kingsford’s steps and rang the bell. It had been snowing
all night and all day, and the big drawing-room was dark and
depressing, a condition that chimed admirably with Phillip’s mood.
After the maid left him he sat a long, long while in front of a
smouldering fire of cannel-coal and strove to think of all the grand
and dignified and utterly mean remarks that had occurred to him the
night before. But, for some reason, his wrath had burned out and he
only felt sorrowful and depressed and lonely. When Betty appeared, he
told himself dejectedly, he would give her the photograph, say farewell
and go away forever. He looked out through the great high windows into
the whirling storm and thought what an ideal day it was on which to go
away forever! Then it occurred to him suddenly that “forever” was a
most dispiriting word and that he was very miserable.
Upstairs in her room, Betty, who since three o’clock had been anxiously
watching for Phillip from her front window, was now impatiently
watching the hands of the little Dresden clock on the mantel. She had
made up her mind that Phillip should wait half an hour. She thought
the suspense would have a salutary effect on his temper, and it was
a subdued and chastened Phillip that she wanted to confront, and not
the rather dangerous-looking Phillip she had parted from in Harvard
Square the day before. She had made up her mind to keep him waiting
thirty minutes. But it had not occurred to her that she would also
keep herself waiting, and now thirty minutes seemed a terribly long
time. When ten minutes had dragged past she agreed on a compromise;
twenty-five minutes would do quite as well as thirty. Five minutes
later she compromised again; twenty minutes was really all that was
necessary. Then she looked herself over very carefully in the long
mirror and descended the stairs, entering the drawing-room just
seventeen minutes after Phillip’s arrival.
“How do you do?” she asked brightly, smilingly. “Isn’t this storm
awful?”
Phillip, who had risen to meet her with his countenance properly
severe, was so astounded at this change of front that the effectiveness
of his expression was somewhat marred. He bowed and muttered
incoherently. Betty sank into a chair some ten feet away and arranged
her skirts to her pleasure before she continued the conversation.
“Did you have trouble getting into town?” she asked.
“No――yes, I believe so,” Phillip replied vaguely. He was still
standing. Now he placed a hand within his coat and drew forth a
package.
“Here is the picture,” he announced somberly.
“The picture?” said Betty. “Oh, thank you. Won’t you sit down?”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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