Part 41

"Dear," she essayed, her voice just audible, "dear, has Mr. Gerard ever spoken to you of me?"

Surprised, Corrie looked down at the bent head resting against his rough overcoat. Himself a lover, he yet had not suspected this other romance flowering beside his own; he did not guess the obvious secret, now.

"Of you? Oh, yes; he asks if you are well, each day. He never forgets such things. Why?"

She had no answer to that natural question. In spite of her reason, Flavia was chilled by the flat conventionality of Gerard's apparent attitude, as represented by those formal inquiries. Almost she would have preferred that he had not spoken of her at all; silence could not have implied indifference.

"Nothing," she faltered. It clearly was impossible to speak as she had imagined. "Only, as his hostess, and your sister, I fancied that he might----"

"He wouldn't say that sort of thing to me, Other Fellow. No doubt he will come to pay a farewell call before he leaves. He isn't very fit, you know; he hasn't been out yet. He must be at his western factory this week, he said, or he wouldn't try to travel."

Her color rushed back. Why had she not remembered that? Why should he speak of her to anyone, since to-morrow he would come to see her? To-morrow? The clocks had struck midnight, to-day they would see each other.

"It is late," Corrie added, as if in answer to her thought. He sighed wearily. "You are tired, I suppose we both are. Come up."

He passed his arm about her waist, and they went up the stairs together, leaning on one another. But Allan Gerard was a third presence with them, and in their sense of his guardianship brother and sister rested like children comforted.

The following day was one filled with an atmosphere of disruption and imminent departure. The very servants caught the contagion and hurried uncomfortably about their tasks. Corrie's preparations were unostentatious, but Isabel's agitated the entire household. Also, Mr. Rose issued his instructions that Flavia should be ready to start for France on the next steamer sailing. The house that had been rose-colored within and without was become a gray place to be avoided.

Flavia thought all day of Allan Gerard. She knew her father went in the afternoon to pay him a farewell visit, she knew Corrie was with him all the morning, and when each returned home she suspended breath in anticipation of hearing the step of a guest also--the step of Gerard coming towards the goal which he had half-showed her in the fountain arbor. But Corrie and Mr. Rose each entered alone.

Nevertheless, she chose to wear his color, that night; the pale, glistening tea-rose yellow above which her warm hair showed burnished gold. He must come that evening, if at all; she would be truly "Flavia Rose" to him.

She was standing alone before her mirror, setting the last pearl comb in place, when her cousin came into the room.

"You look as if you were happy enough," Isabel commented fretfully. "I don't believe you care at all about Corrie's going away. Of course you don't care about me. What are you putting on that old-fashioned thing for?"

Flavia gravely turned her large eyes upon the other girl; the unjust attack fell in harsh dissonance with her own mood of hushed anticipation. She could not have robed herself for her wedding with more serious care and earnest thoughtfulness than she had used in preparing to receive Gerard to-night. This was no time for coquetry; as he came for her, she would go to him, she knew, without evasion or pretense to harass his weakness. She shrank, wincing sensitively, from this rough criticism, but every member of the family had learned not to reply to the new Isabel's peevish tartness.

"It was my mother's," she explained, to the last inquiry, tenderly lifting the long chain of pearl and amber beads ending in a lace-fine pearl cross. Never could she attempt to tell her cousin the blended motives from which she had chosen to wear this rosary. "And her mother's and again her's. It is very old Spanish work. Shall we go down?"

"What for? It is not time for dinner. Oh, Martin told me there was a messenger waiting to deliver a letter, just now, as I came here."

The color flared up over Flavia's delicate face.

"A messenger, Isabel?"

"Yes, who would not send up his message. I told Martin that we would ring."

Flavia slowly wound the chain around her throat. There was no escape from Isabel's insistent companionship, she realized.

"Ring, then, please," she requested, and passed into her little sitting-room, beyond.

Isabel followed curiously, ensconcing herself in one of the easy-chairs and idly twitching blossoms from the hyacinths in a bowl near her. All day she had been especially nervous and irritable, her least movements were characterized by an impatience almost feverish.

The messenger who appeared on the threshold was Jack Rupert, not in the familiar guise of the Mercury's mechanician, but Rupert at leisure; a small, immaculate figure as New Yorkese as Broadway itself. The movement that brought Flavia across to him was impulsive as a confident child's and accompanied by a candid radiance of glance and smile flashed straight into the visitor's black eyes. She had no attention to spare to the fact that Isabel also had risen.

"You have been so good as to bring a message to me, Mr. Rupert?" she questioned happily.

"I ain't denying it was a pleasure to come," he made gracious reply, with his slight drawl of speech. "I've been given this to deliver to Miss Rose, from Mr. Gerard, under orders to bring the answer back unless it was preferred to send it by Mr. Rose, junior, to-morrow."

"This" was a letter. As Flavia held out her hand to receive it, Isabel reached her side and seized her wrist so fiercely as to bruise the soft flesh.

"It is mine!" she panted. "Give it to me--it is mine!"