"No. Robert has said ’positively;’ and when he says ’positively,’ I never waste any more nervous force. Poor, dear boy, he wants to stay as badly as I do, but we have been here longer than we expected already, and after all I would rather go back than to give up the apartment and go to the poorhouse, which he says is the alternative."
"I must go to Boston before long," said Page. "Wouldn’t you like to stay and go back with me?"
"No, I thank you," with a firm shake of the head. "I shouldn’t care for the Fair without Robert."
"That is nice," remarked Gorham, regarding her attentively. "I think I should like my wife to feel like that."
Hilda laughed. "Oh, that vague and shadowy wife of yours! Once I believed in her. Too bad that such a good-natured match-maker as I would have been should be burdened with such an impossible brother as you. I have lost all my interest in you, and have transferred it to Jack."
Gorham smiled pensively, and struck the palm of one of his hands with the knuckles of the other. "You think yourself very clever about Jack, don’t you?"
"It goes without saying that I am clever, of course, but this occasion does not demand much insight. If they were a trifle more secret in their chats in corners and their exchange of masonic signals, I should think, perhaps, I was a treacherous guest to mention them; but they enjoy their little comedy, and are perfectly willing others should. I think it is unkind in them not to come out openly and allow me to give them my blessing before I go."
"I must say, Hilda, I don’t enjoy hearing you use that tone about Mrs. Van Tassel."
"What is the matter with my tone?" asked Hilda.
"It is light," answered Page, with grave simplicity.
His sister stared a moment, then burst into laughter. "What crotchet have you taken now?" she asked. "Doesn’t the match please you?"
"It is not a match. You are laboring under a false idea. If Mrs. Van Tassel should ever distinguish a man in the way you are speaking of, it will come to our knowledge in a different manner from the one you describe. We are talking in low tones in a corner now; but we are not sentimentally interested in one another."
"An unanswerable argument," said Hilda good-naturedly. "You needn’t take the matter _au grand sérieux_. I am profoundly grateful to Mrs. Van Tassel, and think her one of the most charming women I ever knew."