"But I'm coming to see you at--at your house, and at the convent," he
said eagerly. "Father Sobriente and my cousin will fix it all right."
But Susy shook her head, with superior wisdom. "No; they must never know
our secret!--neither papa nor mamma, especially mamma. And they mustn't
know that we've met again--AFTER THESE YEARS!" It is impossible to
describe the deep significance which Susy's blue eyes gave to this
expression. After a pause she went on--
"No! We must never meet again, Clarence, unless Mary Rogers helps. She
is my best, my ONLIEST friend, and older than I; having had trouble
herself, and being expressly forbidden to see him again. You can speak
to her about Suzette--that's my name now; I was rechristened Suzette
Alexandra Peyton by mamma. And now, Clarence," dropping her voice and
glancing shyly around the saloon, "you may kiss me just once under my
hat, for good-by." She adroitly slanted her broad-brimmed hat towards
the front of the shop, and in its shadow advanced her fresh young cheek
to Clarence.
Coloring and laughing, the boy pressed his lips to it twice. Then Susy
arose, with the faintest affectation of a sigh, shook out her skirt,
drew on her gloves with the greatest gravity, and saying, "Don't follow
me further than the door--they're coming now," walked with supercilious
dignity past the preoccupied proprietor and waiters to the entrance.
Here she said, with marked civility, "Good-afternoon, Mr. Brant," and
tripped away towards the hotel. Clarence lingered for a moment to look
after the lithe and elegant little figure, with its shining undulations
of hair that fell over the back and shoulders of her white frock like a
golden mantle, and then turned away in the opposite direction.
He walked home in a state, as it seemed to him, of absurd perplexity.
There were many reasons why his encounter with Susy should have been of
unmixed pleasure. She had remembered him of her own free will, and, in
spite of the change in her fortune, had made the first advances. Her
doubts about her future interviews had affected him but little; still
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