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CHAPTER XXI.
She had made everything comfortable for the artist; there was no further
pretext for staying. So she said she would go, now, and asked him to
summon the servants in case he should need anything. She went away
unhappy; and she left unhappiness behind her; for she carried away all
the sunshine. The time dragged heavily for both, now. He couldn't paint
for thinking of her; she couldn't design or millinerize with any heart,
for thinking of him. Never before had painting seemed so empty to him,
never before had millinerizing seemed so void of interest to her. She
had gone without repeating that dinner-invitation--an almost unendurable
disappointment to him. On her part-well, she was suffering, too; for she
had found she couldn't invite him. It was not hard yesterday, but it was
impossible to-day. A thousand innocent privileges seemed to have been
filched from her unawares in the past twenty-four hours. To-day she felt
strangely hampered, restrained of her liberty. To-day she couldn't
propose to herself to do anything or say anything concerning this young
man without being instantly paralyzed into non-action by the fear that he
might "suspect." Invite him to dinner to-day? It made her shiver to
think of it.
And so her afternoon was one long fret. Broken at intervals. Three
times she had to go down stairs on errands--that is, she thought she had
to go down stairs on errands. Thus, going and coming, she had six
glimpses of him, in the aggregate, without seeming to look in his
direction; and she tried to endure these electric ecstasies without
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