"Won't you walk with me?" I whispered as we were near an open window
in a pause of the dance.
"I can't, Charley--indeed I can't," as I tried to draw her outside: "I
will explain another time."
"You are very cruel," I continued in the same undertone.
"You don't care if I am," she said a little bitterly.
"As if I do not care when you use me badly! Won't you tell me what is
the matter?" I asked tenderly.
"Oh, Mr. Highrank, I am so unhappy!" she whispered.
"Why so, my dear?" No one could help calling Eva "my dear"; besides,
we were hidden by the heavy window curtain and no one overheard us.
"I--I--am going to be married," she said.
"It appears to me that ought to make you particularly merry, oughtn't
it?"
"But it don't," she answered, sighing.
"Why not, you foolish girl?"
"Oh, everything is so different from what I expected."
"In what way?"
"W-h-y," she answered slowly, "I thought it would be romantic, and
that he would ask me in the moonlight."
"Like to-night, for instance?" I said, taking her hand and drawing her
through the low window on to the piazza.
"Yes," she replied, "and instead of that--"
"Well, instead of that?" I repeated, seeing she paused.
"Instead of that, it was in that old parlor of ours. I have never had
a nice time since we took it two weeks ago, odious green place! I
detest green furniture; it is so unbecoming," she said pathetically.
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