“Don’t be afraid, Miss Lane.  I’ll do my best to help keep her here, so long, at least, as I stay myself. ‘Apres cela le deluge.’”

“I don’t speak French.”

“Ah?  No?  I regret it.  You might have assisted me in my genders.  I am never altogether sure of them.”

“Mr. De Forest,” called Bell, imperatively, from the other side of the room, displeased at the defalcation of her knight, “I want to introduce you to Miss Mudge.”

Miss Mudge tried to make Bell understand by frantic pantomime that she hadn’t meant just now,—­any time would do,—­but Bell chose it should be just now; and slightly lifting his eyebrows, Mr. De Forest took his handsome person slowly back to Bell to make an almost impertinently indifferent bow to the new claimant upon him.

Mr. Halloway had been standing near Phebe, too near not to overhear the conversation, and he turned to her now quickly.

“So this accounts for your beaming face,” he said in a low tone, as he took a seat just back of her in the window niche.  “The mysterious Gerald is really coming, then.  I wondered what had happened as soon as I saw you.  Why did you not tell me?”

“I was only waiting till I had the chance,” she answered, all the brightness coming back into her bonny face as she smiled up at him.

“Do you think I could keep any thing so nice from you for long?  It seems to make every thing nicer when you know it too.  She is coming to-morrow,—­only think,—­to-morrow,—­just twenty-one hours more now.  I can hardly wait!”

“It will be a great happiness to her, surely, to see you again,” said Denham.

“That’s what she writes in her letter.  At least she says:  ’I shall be glad to see you again, Phebe, my dear’ Isn’t that nice?  ‘Phebe, my dear,’ she says.  That is a great deal for Gerald to say.”

“Is it?  But I believe some young ladies are less effusive with their pens than with their tongues.”

“It isn’t Gerald’s nature ever to be effusive.  But oh, I’m so glad she’s coming!  I only got her letter last night.  See, doesn’t she write a nice hand?” And cautiously, lest any one else should see too, Phebe slipped an envelope into Denham’s hand.  He bent back behind the lace curtains to inspect it.

“Do you generally carry about your letters in your pocket, Miss Phebe?”

“No, only Gerald’s.  I love so always to have something of hers near me.  Isn’t it a nice hand?”

Halloway looked silently at the upright, angular, large script.  “It’s legible, certainly.”

“But you don’t like it?”

“Miss Phebe, I am torn between conflicting truth and politeness.  It is like a man’s hand, if I must say something.”

“And so are her letters like a man’s.  Read it and see.  Oh, she wouldn’t mind!  There is nothing in it, and yet somehow it seems just like Gerald.  Do read it.  Oh, I want you to.  Please, please do.”