She made no answer.

“I shall be gone a week, maybe more; because if I don’t pull the chestnut out of the fire in St. Louis, I’ll have to go to some other places.”

She hardly heard him; she was saying to herself:  “I oughtn’t to have told him she was in love with him; it may make him think so, himself!”

“Guess I’ll pack my grip now,” he said.

“Maurice,” she said, breathlessly, “I didn’t mean—­” She was so frightened that she couldn’t finish her sentence; but he said, with kindly understanding: 

“Of course you didn’t!”

It flashed into her mind that if she left him alone, he would know that what she had said was so meaningless that she didn’t think it worth talking about.  “I—­I’m going to Auntie’s to dinner,” she told him, on the spur of the moment.  “Do you mind?”

“No; of course not.  Wait a second, and I’ll walk round with you.”

She said, unsteadily, “Oh no; you’ve got your packing to do—­” Then she kissed him swiftly, and hurried downstairs.

“But Eleanor, wait!” he called; “I’ll go with—­”

She had gone.  He heard the front door close.  He stood still in his perplexity.  What was the matter?  She had got over that jealousy of Edith in an instant; got over it, and accepted his departure without all those wearying protestations of love and loneliness to which he was accustomed.  “Is she angry,” he told himself; “or just ashamed of having been so foolish?” Mechanically, he picked out some neckties from his drawer, and paused....  “But she wasn’t foolish.  I do love Edith....  How did she get on to it?  She is so good to me about Jacky—­and I love Edith!” He went on packing his grip.  “I wonder if any man ever paid as I am paying?—­I’ll call her up at Mrs. Newbolt’s, before I go, and say good-by.”

No doubt he would have done so, but when he went downstairs he found Johnny Bennett, smoking comfortably before that very cheerful little fire.

“I dropped in,” said Johnny, “to ask for some dinner.”

“If you’ll take pot luck,” said Maurice; “Eleanor isn’t at home, and I don’t know what the lady below stairs will work off on us.” (It would be a relief, he thought, to have somebody at table, so that he would not be alone with his own confusion.)

“I came,” Johnny said, “to tell you I’m off.”

“Off?  When?  Where to?  I thought your electric performances were panning out so well—­”

“Oh, they’re panning out all right,” John said; “but they’ll pan out better in South America.  I’m going the first of the month.”

“South America!  What’s the matter with Pennsylvania?”

“Well,” Johnny said; “I thought I’d light out—­”

Then they began to talk climate, and consulates, which carried them through dinner, and went on in the library, and Maurice’s surface interest in Johnny’s affairs, at least kept him from thinking of his own dismay.