moment.
“We must go back at once!” said Sherrill, making hasty dabs at her eyes with her scrap of lace handkerchief.
“Of course,” said Copeland, offering a large cool square of immaculate linen.
Then he took her hand and led her gravely out into the moonlight, pulled her arm possessively through his, and accommodated his step to hers.
When they came to the long window where they had escaped a few minutes before, he looked down at her.
“Are you all right?” he asked softly.
“All right!” she answered with a brave little catch in her breath, and smiled up at him.
He still held her hand, and he gave it a warm pressure before he let her go. Then they stepped inside the room and saw the end of the long line of guests progressing slowly down the hall and Aunt Pat hovering behind them, looking this way and that, out the front door, and into the vacated library. It was evident she was looking for Sherrill, for as they came forward her brow cleared, and she smiled a relieved smile and came to meet them.
Just an instant she lingered by Sherrill’s side as Copeland stepped to the dining room door to look over the heads of the throng and reconnoiter for seats for them all.
“I don’t know how you have planned,” said the old lady in something that sounded like a low growl, “nor how long this ridiculous performance has been going on, but I thought I’d remind you that it will be necessary for that girl to have some baggage if you expect to carry this thing out. I don’t want to interfere with your plans, but there’s that second suitcase, the one that wasn’t marked that we had sent up. It hasn’t been returned yet, you know. I suppose you’ll have to see that she has things enough to be decent on ship board, unless she has time enough to get some of her own. But if you let that lace evening dress or that shell-pink chiffon go, I’ll never forgive you. It’s bad enough to lose the going-away outfit, but I suppose there isn’t any way out of that. A couple of evening dresses and some casual things ought to see her through. Don’t be a fool and give up everything!” And Miss Catherwood, with her head in the air and a set smile on her aristocratic face, swept on to the dining room.
Sherrill stood startled, looking after her doubtfully. Did that mean that Aunt Pat was angry? Angry yet going to stand by till it was all over to the last detail? Or did it mean that she understood the awful situation better than Sherrill knew? She was a canny old lady. How wonderfully she had stood and met that line of hungry gossip-mongers! But yet, she might still be angry. Very angry! To be the talk of the town when she had done so much to make this wedding perfect in every way. To have people wondering and gossiping about them! It would be dreadful for Aunt Pat!
Sherrill had a sudden vision of what it might be to face an infuriated Aunt Pat and explain everything after it was all over, and she had that panicky impulse once more to flee away into the world and shirk it—never come back anymore. But of course she knew she never would do that!
Then Copeland touched her on the arm.
“Please, do we follow the rest, or what?” and she perceived that they two were left alone in the room, with only the end of the procession surging away from them toward the dining room.
Sherrill giggled nervously.
“I haven’t much head, have I?” she said. “I’ve got to go upstairs a minute or two and put some things in a suitcase. It won’t take long. Perhaps I’d better go now.”
“Yes,” said Copeland thoughtfully. “Now would be a good time. I’ll wait here at the foot of the stairs for you.”
She flew up the stairs with a quick smile back at her helper. He was marvelous! It could not be that he was an absolute stranger! It seemed as if she had known him always. Here she had almost laid bare her heart to him, and he had taken it all so calmly and done everything needful, just as if he understood all the details. No brother could have been more tender, more careful of her. She remembered his lips on her eyelids, and her breath came quickly. How gentle he had been!
She hurried to her