"I--I should like to come in, if you will let me," he gasped out.

"Why, certainly, Mr. Langbourne," she returned.

He had not dwelt so long and so intently on the meeting at hand without
considering how he should account for his coming, and he had formulated
a confession of his motives. But he had never meant to make it to Juliet
Bingham, and he now found himself unable to allege a word in explanation
of his presence. He followed her into the parlor. Barbara silently gave
him her hand and then remained passive in the background, where Dickery
held aloof, smiling in what seemed his perpetual enjoyment of the Juliet
Bingham joke. She at once put herself in authority over the situation;
she made Langbourne let her have his hat; she seated him when and where
she chose; she removed and put back the lampshades; she pulled up and
pulled down the window-blinds; she shut the outer door because of the
night air, and opened it because of the unseasonable warmth within. She
excused Mrs. Simpson's absence on account of a headache, and asked him
if he would not have a fan; when he refused it she made him take it, and
while he sat helplessly dangling it from his hand, she asked him about
the summer he had had, and whether he had passed it in New York. She was
very intelligent about the heat in New York, and tactful in keeping the
one-sided talk from falling. Barbara said nothing after a few faint
attempts to take part in it, and Langbourne made briefer and briefer
answers. His reticence seemed only to heighten Juliet Bingham's
satisfaction, and she said, with a final supremacy, that she had been
intending to go out with Mr. Dickery to a business meeting of the
book-club, but they would be back before Langbourne could get away; she
made him promise to wait for them. He did not know if Barbara looked any
protest,--at least she spoke none,--and Juliet went out with Dickery.
She turned at the door to bid Barbara say, if any one called, that she
was at the book-club meeting. Then she disappeared, but reappeared and
called, "See here, a minute, Bab!" and at the outer threshold she
detained Barbara in vivid whisper, ending aloud, "Now you be sure to do
both, Bab! Aunt Elmira will tell you where the things are." Again she
vanished, and was gone long enough to have reached the gate and come
back from it. She was renewing all her whispered and out-spoken charges
when Dickery showed himself at her side, put his hand under her elbow,
and wheeled