taurants for supper.

Down there somewhere was Ivor, going farther away from me every moment,
though last night at about this time he had been telling me how he loved
me, how I was the One Girl in the world for him, and always, always
would be. Here was I, remembering in spite of myself every word he had
said, hearing again the sound of his voice and seeing the look in his
eyes as he said it. There was he, going to the woman for whose sake he
had been willing to break with me.

But was he going to her? I asked myself. If not, when they had chaffed
him he might easily have mentioned what his engagement really was,
knowing, as he must have known, exactly how he made me suffer.

Still--why had he looked so miserable, if he didn't care what I thought,
and was really ready to throw me over at a call from her? The whole
thing began to appear more complicated, more mysterious than I had felt
it to be at first, when I was smarting with my disappointment in Ivor,
and tingling all over with the humiliation he seemed to have put upon
me.

"Oh, to know, to _know_, what he's doing at this minute!" I whispered,
half aloud, because it was comforting in my loneliness to hear the sound
of my own voice. "To _know_ whether I'm doing him the most awful
injustice--or not!"

Just then, at the door between my room and Lisa's, next to mine, came a
tapping, and instantly after the handle was tried. But I had turned the
key, thinking that perhaps this very thing might happen--that Lisa might
wish to come, and not wait till I'd given her permission. She does that
sort of thing sometimes, for she is rather curious and impish (Ivor
calls her "Imp"), and if she thinks people don't want her that is the
very time when she most wants them.

"Oh, Di, do let me in!" she exclaimed.

For a second or two I didn't answer. Never in my life had I liked poor
Lisa less than I'd liked her for the last four and twenty hours, though
I'd told myself over and over again that she meant well, that she was
acting for my good, and that some day I would be grateful instead of
longing to slap her, as I couldn't help doing now. But always before,
when she has irritated me until I've nearly forgotten my promise to her
father (my step-father) always to be gentle with her in thought and
deed, I have felt such pangs of remorse that I've tried to atone, even
when there wasn't really anything to atone for, except in my mind. I was
afraid that, if I refused to let her come