run
through the whole cycle of certainty, eagerness, doubt, and she was now
rapidly approaching despair. He was not coming. Perhaps he had never
meant to come. Possibly he had merely yielded to a polite impulse;
possibly her manner had betrayed her wishes so plainly that a clever,
older person, two or three years out of college, had only too clearly
read her in the moment when she had detained his hand at the door of the
ball-room.

There was a ring at the bell. Her heart stood perfectly still, and then
began beating with a terrible force, as if it gathered itself into a
hard, weighty lump again and again. Several minutes went by, too long for
a man to give to taking off his coat. At last she got up and cautiously
opened the door; a servant was carrying a striped cardboard box to her
mother's room. Miss Severance went back and sat down. She took a long
breath; her heart returned to its normal movement.

Yet, for some unexplained reason, the fact that the door-bell had rung
once made it more possible that it would ring again, and she began to
feel a slight return of confidence.

A servant opened the door, and in the instant before she turned her head
she had time to debate the possibility of a visitor having come in
without ringing while the messenger with the striped box was going out.
But, no; Pringle was alone.

Pringle had been with the family since her mother was a girl, but, like
many red-haired men, he retained an appearance of youth. He wanted to
know if he should take away the tea.

She knew perfectly why he asked. He liked to have the tea-things put away
before he had his own supper and began his arrangements for the family
dinner. She felt that the crisis had come.

If she said yes, she knew that her visitor would come just as tea had
disappeared. If she said no, she would sit there alone, waiting for
another half-hour, and when she finally did ring and tell Pringle he
could take away the tea-things, he would look wise and reproachful.
Nevertheless, she did say no, and Pringle with admirable
self-control, withdrew.

The afternoon seemed very quiet. Miss Severance became aware of all
sorts of bells that she had never heard before--other door-bells,
telephone-bells in the adjacent houses, loud, hideous bells on motor
delivery-wagons, but not her own front door-bell.

Her heart felt like lead. Things would never be the same now. Probably
there was some explanation of his not coming, but it could never b