Page:Across the Stream.djvu/128

118 of the situation of which the seed had been deliberately planted by herself. It was but a weak little spike as yet, but undeniably there was the potentiality of growth in it.

Suddenly his face leapt into light, as he struck a match, and the gain of a fortnight's London season seemed to her insignificant. And the success of her plan, the wisdom of which she still endorsed, was but a frigid triumph, for she felt to a degree yet unknown to her his personal charm.

"Oh, Archie, I wish I wasn't going away," she said. "It has been a nice time. I wish—no, I suppose that's selfish of me."

"I want to know what is selfish of you," said he.

"Do you? Well, as it's our last evening you shall. I wish I thought you would miss me more."

He moved just a shade closer to her.

"Oh, I shall miss you quite enough," he said.

She laughed.

"I don't think you will," she said. "You'll have your bathing and your boating and your writing. I expect you will have a very jolly time."

He seemed to think over this.

"Yes, I shall have all those things," he said. "And I like them. Why shouldn't I? But no, like you, I won't say that."

"But I did," she remarked.

"Well, I will too. I shall miss you much more than I should have missed you if you had gone away a week ago."

She, too, hesitated a moment. Then very coolly she replied:

"Thank you very much."

There was calculation in that: she had thought over her polite, chilly manner swiftly but carefully. And she had calculated rightly. He chucked away the cigarette he had only just lit.