He is in town.
I discovered it at breakfast. I knew I was in for it, and I got down early, counting on mother breakfasting in bed. I would have felt better if father had been at home, because he understands somwhat the way They keep me down. But he was away about an order for shells (not sea; war), and I was to bear my chiding alone. I had eaten my fruit and serial, and was about to begin on sausage, when mother came in, having risen early from her slumbers to take the decorations to the Hospital.
“So here you are, wreched child!” she said, giving me one of her coldest looks. “Barbara, I wonder if you ever think whither you are tending.”
I ate a sausage.
What, Dear Dairy, was there to say?
“To disobey!” she went on. “To force yourself on the atention of Mr. Beresford, in a borowed dress, with your eyelashes blackend and your face painted——”
“I should think, mother,” I observed, “that if he wants to marry into this family, and is not merely being dragged into it, that he ought to see the worst at the start.” She glired, without speaking. “You know,” I continued, “it would be a dreadfull thing to have the Ceramony performed and everything to late to back out, and then have me Sprung on him. It wouldn’t be honest, would it?”
“Barbara!” she said in a terrable tone. “First disobedience, and now sarcasm. If your father was only here! I feel so alone and helpless.”
Her tone cut me to the Heart. After all she was my own mother, or at least maintained so, in spite of numerous questions enjendered by our lack of resemblence, moral as well as physicle. But I did not offer to embrase her, as she was at that moment poring out her tea. I hid my misery behind the morning paper, and there I beheld the fated vision. Had I felt any doubt as to the state of my afections it was settled then. My Heart leaped in my bosom. My face sufused. My hands trembled so that a piece of sausage slipped from my fork. His picture looked out at me with that well remembered gaze from the depths of the morning paper.
Oh, Adrian, Adrian!
Here in the same city as I, looking out over perchance the same newspaper to perchance the same sun, wondering—ah, what was he wondering?
I was not even then, in that first Rapture, foolish about him. I knew that to him I was probably but a tender memory. I knew, to, that he was but human and probably very concieted. On the other hand, I pride myself on being a good judge of character, and he carried Nobility in every linament. Even the obliteration of one eye by the printer could only hamper but not destroy his dear face.
“Barbara,” mother said sharply. “I am speaking. Are you being sulkey?”
“Pardon me, mother,” I said in my gentlest tones. “I was but dreaming.” And as she made no reply, but rang the bell visciously, I went on, pursuing my line of thought. “Mother, were you ever in Love?”