feared. Empty bravado! If he could but flee now! But there was no
fleeing, turning, retreating, or evading. The issue had to be met.

Miss Dalrymple, gowned in a filmy material which lent an evanescent
charm to her slender figure, came down the front steps as he was about
to enter the area way below. The girl looked at him and her eyes
suddenly widened; she stopped. Mr. Heatherbloom, quite pale, bowed and
would have gone on, when something in her look, or the first word that
fell from her lips, held him.

"You!" she said, as if she did not at all comprehend.

He repaid her regard with less steady look; he had to say something and
he didn't wish to. Why couldn't people just meet and pass on, the way
dumb creatures do? The gift of speech has its disadvantages--on
occasions; it forces one to insufficient answer or superfluous
explanation. "Yes," he said, "your--Miss Van Rolsen engaged me. I
didn't really want to stay, but it came about. Some things do, you know.
You see," he added, "I didn't know she was your aunt when I answered the
advertisement."

She bent her gaze down upon him as if she hardly heard; beneath the
bright adornment of tints, the lovely face--it was a very proud
face--had become icy cold; the violet eyes were hard as shining crystal.
To Mr. Heatherbloom that slender figure, tensely poised, seemed at once
overwhelmingly near and inexpressibly remote. He started to lean on an
iron picket but changed his mind and stood rather too stiffly, without
support. Before his eyes the flowers in her hat waved and waved; he
tried to keep his eyes on them.