Page:Stella Dallas, a novel (IA stelladallasnove00prou).pdf/264

254 "No. Of course I haven't. But—"

"Then could you come down this evening?"

"Helen, what has happened?"

"Nothing awful. Could you?"

"Yes. I could. But—"

"About eight o'clock?"

"Yes, eight o'clock. All right. But, Helen, please—"

"Eight o'clock to-night, then. Good-bye."

She had sent for him! Helen had sent for him to come to her! At one o'clock, at half-past one, at two, Stephen was still sitting in his big chair before his desk, looking far out over the roofs. Miss Mills was still sitting outside the door, waiting to finish the dictation.

" sorry to have called you at your office, Stephen," were Helen's first words when she saw him that night, standing ten feet away from him, just inside the threshold of the big room. "I suppose you were having a consultation or doing something important"—she tried to make her voice sound light and careless—"but I wanted to get you, right straight off, so that you wouldn't fall down an elevator-shaft, or get killed in an explosion, or something"—she laughed tremulously—"the way they do in novels, sometimes, before I had a chance to tell you that after all our years of waiting, that—that—after—Oh, Stephen—"