Page:The Star in the Window.pdf/244

234 both socially and professionally, was not supposed to be a love-affair. If she had thought that Reba was ignorant of such well-known facts and suppositions about the much discussed Chadwick Booth, she would have been more gentle.

It was after Reba's brain had recovered a little from its first shock, that she began slowly, dully, rehearsing the details of the conversation that had just taken place in her room. Abruptly she stumbled onto Louise Bartholomew's last remark. What was it she had said? Unhappily married?

"Why," Reba exclaimed outloudout-loud [sic], unlocking her long-clasped hands, "I'm unhappily married too!"

She stood up, walked over to the window, and looked out across the roofs. His marriage might not be any more restrictive than hers. Her heart gave a jerk of sudden hope. Moreover, might it not possibly account for his disturbing silence? It wouldn't be strange if there were things in his past life that must be arranged, wiped out, annulled, as well as in hers, before he was able to ask her to marry him, or she to do so.

"I must see him. I must talk with him," she said. She looked at her watch. There was time enough. It was only a little after two. "Of course I must see him," she told herself again, and the very thought that the immediate afternoon's meeting was not to be foregone acted like a stimulant upon her.

She became aware of hunger (she had not had anything to eat since breakfast), and slipping into her street suit, she went out to a nearby restaurant.

She was to meet Chadwick Booth at five o'clock; and by the time she had returned, finished with her careful toilette, and stood ready in her room, about