But do just answer me this, Caroline, if
you can: When you told Jim marryin' was out of the question for you, did
he take that as final? Was he contented with that? Didn't he say he was
willin' to wait for you, or anything?"
"Yes, he said he would wait, always. But I told him he must not. And I
told him he must go and not see me again. I couldn't see him as I have
been doing; Uncle, I couldn't!"
"I know, dearie, I know. But didn't you say anything more? Didn't you
give him ANY hope?"
"I said," she hesitated, and added in a whisper, "I said if I should
ever need him or--or change my mind, I would send for him. I shouldn't
have said it. It was weak and wicked of me, but I said it. Please let me
go now, Uncle dear. Good night."
She kissed him and hurried away. He ate his lonely dinner
absent-mindedly and with little appetite. After it was finished he sat
in the living room, the lamp still unlighted, smoking and thinking.
And in her chamber Caroline, too, sat thinking--not altogether of the
man she loved and who loved her. She thought of him, of course; but
there was something else, an idea, a suspicion, which over and over
again she dismissed as an utter impossibility, but which returned as
often.
The Stock Exchange seat had been a part of her father's estate, a
part of her own and Steve's inheritance.
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