Missy closed her eyes tight, as if fearing what they might behold in the flesh. But when she opened them again, Aunt Isabel was only gazing into the drained flasket with a rueful expression.
Then they went back and got another soda for Uncle Charlie. And poor Uncle Charlie, unsuspecting, seemed to enjoy it.
During the remainder of that evening Missy was unusually subdued. She realized, of course, that there were no love-potions nowadays; that they existed only in the Middle Ages; and that the silver flasket contained everyday ice-cream soda. And she wasn't sure she knew exactly what the word “symbol” meant, but she felt that somehow the ice-cream soda, shared between them, was symbolic of that famous, fateful drink. She wished acutely that this second episode, so singularly parallel, hadn't happened.
She was still absorbed in gloomy meditations when Mr. Saunders arose to go.
“Oh, it's early yet,” protested Uncle Charlie--dear, kind, ignorant Uncle Charlie!
“But I've got to catch the ten-thirty-five,” said Mr. Saunders.
“Why can't you stay over till to-morrow night,” suggested Aunt Isabel. She had risen, too, and now put her hand on Mr. Saunders's sleeve; her face looked quite pleading in the moonlight. “There's to be a dance in Odd Fellows' Hall.”
“I'd certainly love to stay.” He even dared to take hold of her hand openly. “But I've got to be in Paola in the morning, and Blue Mound next day.”
“The orchestra's coming down from Macon City,” she cajoled.
“Now, don't make it any harder for me,” begged Mr. Saunders, smiling down at her.
Aunt Isabel petulantly drew away her hand.
“You're selfish! And Charlie laid up and all!”
Mr. Saunders outspread his hands in a helpless gesture.
“Well, you know the hard lot of the knight of the road--here to-day, gone to-morrow, never able to stay where his heart would wish!”
Missy caught her breath; how incautiously he talked!
After Mr. Saunders was gone, Aunt Isabel sat relapsed in her porch chair, very quiet. Missy couldn't keep her eyes off of that lovely, apathetic figure. Once Aunt Isabel put her hand to her head.
“Head hitting it up again?” asked Uncle Charlie solicitously.
“You'd better get to bed, then,” he said. And, despite his wounded toe, he wouldn't let her attend to the shutting-up “chores,” but, accompanied by Missy, hobbled around to all the screen doors himself. Poor Uncle Charlie!