Page:Harvey O'Higgins--Don-a-dreams.djvu/108

 Just two streets over—to the grounds."

"Well."

She stepped out more briskly, having made a truce with her conscience, apparently; and when he asked, "Have you left Horton?" she answered, "Oh, yes. I didn't go back this year at all. We didn't know quite what we were going to do."

"About what?"

"About everything! Mother has been having difficulty—with lawyers, you know—about property—I mean 'titles'—in father's will, and now she has won the cases and sold everything and invested the money, and she wants to travel—to Germany or some place where I can study music—or New York."

"Aren't you going to be at the Conservatory?"

She hastened to reassure his dismay. "Yes, yes. For this term. Of course! . . . Mother may leave me here, with Mrs. Kimball, and go down south for the winter. She has been talking of it since September—and this cold may drive her away."

"Oh?" The aching apprehension which her greeting had started in him, had been slowly easing. Now there began to work in its place a bubbling sense of happiness that was as unreasonable as an intoxication. He struggled to repress his smiles. He looked down at the snow on the sidewalk and up at the snow in the crotches of the trees. He fastened the button of his heavy glove, inspecting it narrowly, with the manner of a girl who is in danger of giggling in church. "I hope it won't be as bad as that," he said in a false voice.