Licking it off, she
demanded furiously of herself how she could be such a fool as to cry
about nothing. She must be run down. She must want a tonic.

Then she glanced up at the sound of a step approaching from the
promenade, and there was Wilson's face, quite near, looking in at her
little window. "You'll have a wet walk home, I'm afraid," he said.

"Yes." Her voice held a faint surprise, for he had already spoken once
about the weather. "But I have an umbrella here."

"That's a good thing." He hesitated. "I might have lent you one, only
it is rather large for a little girl," he added, speaking with a sort
of artificial jocosity. "You must find that road rather dark and
lonely on a night like this?" He paused again. "Don't you?"

For a moment or two she did not speak, and that silence somehow gave
her answer an undue significance. "Yes," she said at last.

He opened his lips to speak, then suddenly his expression changed and
he moved away from the window. "Wretched night! Wretched night!" he
said, walking briskly on.

Caroline sat back in her chair, almost feeling as if she had been
struck in the face--for a question had been asked and answered during
that silence which involved all sorts of joys, fears, infidelities;
then in a minute he banished them so utterly that she could scarcely
believe they had ever been in question.

The next moment Mr. and Mrs. Graham were at the window. "Oh, dreadful
night, is it not? You must feel the wind here."

Then they were merged into the shadow of the hall, warning each other
as they went along against taking cold. Caroline saw what had happened
now. Wilson had no doubt caught sight of the Grahams over his
shoulder, and had not wished them to see him talking to her.

Very well!--she was in a flame from head to foot--very well! When he
_did_ want----

But beneath all that she sensed a weak longing for him which she was
trying to drown in a flood of exaggerated indignation. Something told
her that when he did want to speak to her again she would not be able
to refuse: for he was not only a man for whom she felt a personal
attraction, but he was also a type towards which all her new ambitions
aspired. Poised as she now was, between what she had left and where
she desired to be, he represented to her an ideal--assured, educated, a
gentleman.

But though he did not walk home with her--in spite of what he said of
the lonely road--she was not to go by hersel