PTER VI

The last two days of the voyage Bartley found almost intolerable. The
stop at Queenstown, the tedious passage up the Mersey, were things that
he noted dimly through his growing impatience. He had planned to stop in
Liverpool; but, instead, he took the boat train for London.

Emerging at Euston at half-past three o'clock in the afternoon,
Alexander had his luggage sent to the Savoy and drove at once to Bedford
Square. When Marie met him at the door, even her strong sense of the
proprieties could not restrain her surprise and delight. She blushed and
smiled and fumbled his card in her confusion before she ran upstairs.
Alexander paced up and down the hallway, buttoning and unbuttoning his
overcoat, until she returned and took him up to Hilda's living-room. The
room was empty when he entered. A coal fire was crackling in the grate
and the lamps were lit, for it was already beginning to grow dark
outside. Alexander did not sit down. He stood his ground over by the
windows until Hilda came in. She called his name on the threshold, but
in her swift flight across the room she felt a change in him and caught
herself up so deftly that he could not tell just when she did it.
She merely brushed his cheek with her lips and put a hand lightly and
joyously on either shoulder. "Oh, what a grand thing to happen on a
raw day! I felt it in my bones when I woke this morning that something
splendid was going to turn up. I thought it might be Sister Kate or
Cousin Mike would be happening along. I never dreamed it would be you,
Bartley. But why do you let me chatter on like this? Come over to the
fire; you're chilled through."

She pushed him toward the big chair by the fire, and sat down on a stool
at the opposite side of the hearth, her knees drawn up to her chin,
laughing like a happy little girl.

"When did you come, Bartley, and how did it happen? You haven't spoken a
word."

"I got in about ten minutes ago. I landed at Liverpool this morning and
came down on the boat train."

Alexander leaned forward and warmed his hands before the blaze. Hilda
watched him with perplexity.

"There's something troubling you, Bartley. What is it?"

Bartley bent lower over the fire. "It's the whole thing that troubles
me, Hilda. You and I."

Hilda took a quick, soft breath. She looked at his heavy shoulders and
big, determined head, thrust forward like a catapult in leash.

"What about us, Bartley?" she asked in a thin voice.

He