SAM did not wait until Arthur Sinclair left, but, all ardor and impatience, stole in at the Warhams' front gate at ten o'clock.
He dropped to the grass behind a clump of lilacs, and to calm his nerves and to make the time pass more quickly, smoked a cigarette, keeping its lighted end carefully hidden in the hollow of his hand.He was not twenty feet away, was seeing and hearing, when Arthur kissed Ruth good night.He laughed to himself."How disappointed she looked last night when she saw Iwasn't going to do that!" What a charmer Susie must be when the thought of her made the idea of kissing as pretty a girl as Ruth uninteresting, almost distasteful!
Sinclair departed; the lights in parlor and hall went out;presently light appeared through the chinks in some of the second-story shutters.Then followed three-quarters of an hour of increasing tension.The tension would have been even greater had he seen the young lady going leisurely about her preparations for bed.For Ruth was of the orderly, precise women who are created to foster the virtue of patience in those about them.It took her nearly as long to dress for bed as for a party.She did her hair up in curl papers with the utmost care;she washed and rinsed and greased her face and neck and gave them a thorough massage.She shook out and carefully hung or folded or put to air each separate garment.She examined her silk stockings for holes, found one, darned it with a neatness rivaling that of a _stoppeur_.She removed from her dressing table and put away in drawers everything that was out of place.
She closed each drawer tightly, closed and locked the closets, looked under the bed, turned off the lights over the dressing table.She completed her toilet with a slow washing of her teeth, a long spraying of her throat, and a deliberate, thoroughgoing dripping of boracic acid into each eye to keep and improve its clearness and brilliancy.She sat on the bed, reflected on what she had done, to assure herself that nothing had been omitted.After a slow look around she drew off her bedroom slippers, set them carefully side by side near the head of the bed.She folded her nightgown neatly about her legs, thrust them down into the bed.Again she looked slowly, searchingly, about the room to make absolutely sure she had forgotten nothing, had put everything in perfect order.Once in bed, she hated to get out; yet if she should recall any omission, however slight, she would be unable to sleep until she had corrected it.Finally, sure as fallible humanity can be, she turned out the last light, lay down--went instantly to sleep.
It was hardly a quarter of an hour after the vanishing of that last ray when Sam, standing now with heart beating fast and a lump of expectancy, perhaps of trepidation, too, in his throat, saw a figure issue from the front door and move round to the side veranda.He made a detour on the lawn, so as to keep out of view both from house and street, came up to the veranda, called to her softly.
"Can you get over the rail?" asked she in the same low tone.
"Let's go back to the summer house," urged he.
"No.Come up here," she insisted."Be careful.The windows above are open."He climbed the rail noiselessly and made an impetuous move for her hand.She drew back."No, Sam dear," she said."I know it's foolish.But I've an instinct against it--and we mustn't."She spoke so gently that he persisted and pleaded.It was some time before he realized how much firmness there was under her gentleness.She was so afraid of making him cross; yet he also saw that she would withstand at any cost.He placed himself beside her on the wicker lounge, sitting close, his cheek almost against hers, that they might hear each other without speaking above a whisper.After one of those silences which are the peculiar delight of lovers, she drew a long breath and said:
"I've got to go away, Sam.I shan't see you again for a long time.""They heard about this morning? They're sending you away?""No--I'm going.They feel that I'm a disgrace and a drag.So Ican't stay."
"But--you've _got_ to stay!" protested Sam.In wild alarm he suspected she was preparing to make him elope with her--and he did not know to what length of folly his infatuation might whirl him."You've no place to go," he urged.
"I'll find a place," said she.
"You mustn't--you mustn't, Susie! Why, you're only seventeen--and have no experience.""I'll _get_ experience," said she."Nothing could be so bad as staying here.Can't you see that?"He could not.Like so many of the children of the rich, he had no trace of overnice sense of self-respect, having been lying and toadying all his life to a father who used the power of his wealth at home no less, rather more, than abroad.But he vaguely realized what delicacy of feeling lay behind her statement of her position; and he did not dare express his real opinion.He returned to the main point."You've simply got to put up with it for the present, Susie," he insisted."But, then, of course, you're not serious.""Yes.I am going."
"You'll think it over, and see I'm right, dear.""I'm going tonight."
"Tonight!" he cried.
"Sh-h!"
