Perhaps this secrecy, and the absorbing excitement there was in meeting him under the eyes of those who were so deceived, who were so little aware of what was going on beneath, held Janet’s interest more than anything else. A conspiracy has always a strange fascination in it, and to carry on secret communications in the face of every scrutiny, and balk suspicion, and baffle watchfulness, has, especially to the very young, a piquancy which legitimate intercourse often does not have. Janet could not escape the sense of guilt, but the interest, the dramatic combinations that would be gone through in the evening, her own position as the heroine of the situation, a place which Gussy thought was hers, but which was not hers, was too strong, or Janet’s conscience too weak to conquer. Everything yielded to the thought of what he would say. How he would manage all the conflicting elements, whether he would be able to say a word to her to tell her if he had received her letter. It was far more engrossing, far more absorbing than any play. And it may be imagined what a party it was that sat awaiting Meredith in the bright room where Mrs. Harwood sat, with the dimmer one beyond, where all the light centred in the white keys of the piano. Gussy was full of an expectation, not quite serene indeed, but calmer than might have been supposed; for, now that she knew all immediate change to be impossible, she had schooled herself to think that what had been said about a year was in itself a sort of decision upon which, since better could not be, her position for the future might be founded. She awaited his coming, accordingly, with more composure than usual, with a sort of secret assurance, as almost her betrothed--kept from being so only by that exaggerated sense of honor which made her impatient sometimes, yet was nevertheless, in its way, in the mistaken way of men, a high quality. To be able to think highly of the man she loves, although she may think him mistaken, or even wrong--to believe that he is wrong in what is, according to his lights, a chivalrous and high-minded way, is always delightful to a woman. She had reasoned herself into this view of the matter, and she sat accordingly in what poor Gussy thought was her most becoming dress, with a countenance full of light and a heart full of trembling comfort, awaiting her lover.