It made him exquisitely uncomfortable again. He made a little sound
designed to comfort and reassure her. He would do very well. He was
something of a diplomat in his way. He had got along with the boys in
Harvard very well indeed. In fact, he was rather a man of the world. No
need to worry about him, though it was awfully sweet of her.
Cissie picked up her handkerchief with its torn edge, which she had laid
on the table. Evidently she was about to go.
"I surely don't know what will become of me," she said, looking at it.
In a reversal of feeling Peter did not want her to go away quite then.
He cast about for some excuse to detain her a moment longer.
"Now, Cissie," he began, "if you are really going to leave Hooker's
Bend--"
"I'm not going," she said, with a long exhalation. "I--" she swallowed--
"I just thought that up to--ask you to--to--You see," she explained, a
little breathless, "I thought you still loved me and had forgiven me by
the way you watched for me every day at the window."
This speech touched Peter more keenly than any of the little drama the
girl had invented.
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