"I see," say I, tartly, "that you have still your old trick of asking questions. I wish that you would try to get the better of it; it is very disadvantageous to you, and very trying to other people!"

He takes this severe set-down in silence.

The trees that surround the garden are slowly darkening. The shadows that intervene between the round ma.s.ses of the sycamore-leaves deepen, deepen. A bat flitters dumbly by. Vick, to whose faith all things seem possible, runs sharply barking and racing after it. We both laugh at the fruitlessness of her undertaking, and the joint merriment restores suavity to me, and a.s.surance to him.

"And are you to stay here by yourself _all_ the time he is away--_all_?"

"G.o.d forbid!" reply I, with devout force.

"Not? well, then--I am really afraid this is a question again, but I cannot help it. If you will not volunteer information, I must ask for it--who is to be your companion?"

"I suppose they will take turns," say I, relapsing into dejection, as I think of the precarious nature of the society on which I depend; "sometimes one, sometimes another, whichever can get away best--they will take turns."

"And who is to have the _first_ turn?" he asks, leaning back in the corner of the seat, so as to have a fuller view of my lamentable profile; "when is the first installment of consolatory relatives to arrive?"

"Algy and Barbara _were_ to have come to-day," reply I, feeling a covert resentment against something of faintly _gibing_ in his tone, but being conscious that it is not perceptible enough to justify another snub, even if I had one ready, which I have not.

"And they did not?"

"Now is not that a silly question?" cry I, tartly, venting the crossness born of my desolation on the only person within reach; "if they _had_, should I be sitting moping here with n.o.body but Vick to talk to?"

"You forget _me_! may I not run in couples even with a _dog_?" he asks, with a little bitter laugh.

"I did not forget you," reply I, coolly; "but you do not affect the question one way or another--you will be gone directly and--when you are--"

"Thank you for the hint," he cries springing up, picking up his little stick off the gra.s.s and flushing.

"You are not going?" cry I, eagerly, laying my hand on his coat-sleeve, "do not! why should you? there is no hurry. Let me have some one to help me to keep the ghosts at bay as long as I can!" then, with a dim consciousness of having said something rather _odd_, I add, reddening, "I shall be going in directly, and you may go then."

He reseats himself. A tiny air is ruffling the flower-beds, giving a separate soft good-night to each bloom.

"And what happened to Algy and Barbara?" he says presently.

"Happened? Nothing!" I answer, absently.

"Very brutal of Algy and Barbara, then!" he says, more in the way of a reflection than a remark.

"Very brutal of _father_, you should say!" reply I, roused by the thought of my parent to a fresh attack of active and lively resentment.

"I have no doubt I should if I knew him."

"He would not let them come!" say I, explanatorily, "for what reason?

for _none_--he never has any reasons, or if he has, he does not give them. I sometimes think" (laughing maliciously) "that _you_ will not be unlike him, when you grow old and gouty."

"Thank you."

"_You_ have no father, have you?" continue I, presently; "no, I remember your telling me so at the Linkesches Bad. Well" (laughing again, with a certain grim humor), "I would not fret about it _too_ much, if I were you--it is a relationship that has its disadvantages."

He laughs a little dryly.

"On whatever other heads I may quarrel with Providence, at least no one can accuse me of ever murmuring at its decrees in this respect."

We have risen. The darkness creeps on apace, warmly, without damp or chillness; but still, on it comes! I have to face the prospect of my great and gloomy house all through the lagging hours of the long black night!

"They will come to-morrow, _certainly_, I suppose?" (interrogatively).

"Not _certainly_, at all!" reply I, with an energetic despondence in my voice; "quite the contrary! most likely not! most likely not the day after either, nor the day after that--"

"And if they do not" (with an accent of sincere compa.s.sion), "what will you do?"

"What I have done to-day, I suppose," I answer dejectedly; "cry till my cheeks are _sore_! You may not believe me" (pa.s.sing my bare fingers lightly over them as I speak), "but they feel quite _raw_. I wonder"

(with a little dismal laugh) "why tears were made _salt_!--they would not blister one half so much if they were fresh water."

He has drawn a pace or two nearer to me. In this light one has to look closely at any object that one wishes specially and narrowly to observe; and I myself have pointed out the peculiarities of my countenance to him, so I cannot complain if he scrutinizes me with a lengthy attention.

"It is going to be such a _dark_ night!" I say, with a slight shiver; "and if the wind gets up, I know that I shall lie awake all night, thinking that the gen--that Roger is drowned! Do you not think" (looking round apprehensively) "that it is rising already? See how those boughs are waving!"

"Not an atom!" rea.s.suringly.

We both look for an instant at the silent flower-beds, at the sombre bulk of the house.

"If they do not come to-morrow--" begins Frank.

"But they _will_!" cry I, petulantly; "they _must_! I cannot do without them! I believe some people do not _mind_ being alone--not even in the evenings, when the furniture cracks and the door-handles rattle. I dare say _you_ do not; but I hate my own company; I have never been used to it. I have always been used to a great deal of noise--_too_ much, I have sometimes thought, but I am sure that I never shall think so again!"

"Well, but if they do not--"

"You have said that three times," I cry, irritably. "You seem to take a pleasure in saying it. If they do not--well, what?"

"I will not say what I was going to say," he answers, shortly. "I shall only get my nose bitten off if I do."

"Very well, do not!" reply I, with equal suavity.

We walk in silence toward the house, the wet gra.s.s is making my long gown drenched and flabby. We have reached the garden-door whence I issued, and by which I shall return.

"You must go now, I suppose," say I, reluctantly. "_You_ will be by yourself too, will not you? Tell me" (speaking with lowered confidential tone), "do _your_ chairs and tables ever make odd noises?"

"Awful!" he answers, laughing. "I can hardly hear myself speak for them."

I laugh too.

"You might as well tell me before you go what the remark that I quenched was? One always longs to hear the things that people are _going_ to say, and do not! Have no fear! your nose is quite safe!"

"It is nothing much," he answers, with self-conscious stiffness, looking down and poking about the little dark pebbles with his cane; "nothing that you would care about."

"_Care about!_" echo I, leaning my back against the dusk house-wall, and staring up at the sombre purple of the sky. "Well, no! I dare say not!

What _should_ I care to hear now? I am sure I should be puzzled to say!

But, as I have been so near it, I may as well be told."