Page:The Yellow Book - 07.djvu/189

 come yet. We got a telegram just after you went out, about half-an-hour before he came."

Something in her voice, though she had not listened to what she said, struck Gretchen as strange.

In spite of herself. "You don't seem very glad, Cecily? You don't speak quite in the style of the orthodox engaged young lady," she said, laughing a little as she drew nearer the fire.

"I am not engaged," murmured Cecily.

"What!" Gretchen put her hand on the corner of the mantelpiece to steady herself. "What are you saying? What do you mean?"

Cecily turned a pair of frightened eyes towards her. Gretchen was going to be angry. "I—I have broken it off," she whispered in a scared way.

"Since when?"

"Since he came here this afternoon."

Gretchen broke into a shrill laugh. "What a charming reception!" she cried.

Then she recovered herself. "Tell me about it!" she exclaimed peremptorily.

Cecily glanced round the room despairingly, then at Gretchen, who had taken a low chair by the fire and was waiting with a pale face and that patient air she knew so well. There was no escape. "May I shut the door?" she said meekly crossing the room, her white dress trailing, a tall stately figure in spite of her girlishness.

She came back to her place, but did not speak.

"Well?" said Gretchen.

"I don't know what you want me to tell you."

"Why you broke it off."

There was another long pause, then Cecily began to speak low and rapidly.

“I shall