" He glanced out at a passing church or two, and frowned
slightly; why did this girl insist upon doing his mathematical problems
for him? Had not he himself already put his two and two together and made
them four?
Gladys went on, telling him what she knew, guessed, surmised, suspected.
"And they--they suspect _me_," she continued, in a mounting tone of
tragedy. "And I'm--I'm going home in a few days." There were tears on the
dark fringes of her eyes; he thought of a wax image exposed overnight to
a heavy dew. "And all for your sake," the moisture seemed to say.
Truesdale began to feel uncomfortable and a shade ungrateful. "I dare
say she means well," he thought; "but I--I wish she wouldn't."
The carriage was passing between two other churches; he saw that he might
alight after another square of it. "One more will be plenty," he
muttered, and already his hand stole towards the handle of the door.
"You can't think how they both hate you--my aunt and uncle--and me, too,
I'm afraid. They're really driving me out of the house. But never mind; I
can endure even more than that for one that--for the right."
"When did you say you were going?" inquired Truesdale. It was only by
asking plain, every-day questions that he could oppose this robust
romanticism.
"Day after to-morrow--or the next."
"Well," said Truesdale, quietly, "I should think you would do very well
at home--much better than here."
"But where am I to see you before I go? Where are we to say good-bye?"
A cable-car clanged along the cross-street immediately ahead of them, and
the ten yellow stories of a vast hotel loomed up just beyond.
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