"I'm Robinson Crusoe, Noble," she said, when she came back. "I suppose I might as well take off my furs, though." But first she unfastened the great bouquet she wore and tossed it upon a table. Noble was standing close to the table, and he moved away from it hurriedly--a revulsion that she failed to notice. She went on to explain, as she dropped her cloak and stole upon a chair: "Papa's gone away for at least a week. He's taken his ulster. It doesn't make any difference what the weather is, but when he's going away for a week or longer, he always takes it with him, except in summer. If he's only going to be gone two or three days he takes his short overcoat. And unless I'm here when he leaves town he always gives the servants a holiday till he gets back; so they've gone and even taken Gamin with 'em, and I'm all alone in the house. I can't get even Kitty Silver back until to-morrow, and then I'll probably have to hunt from house to house among her relatives. Papa left yesterday, because the numbers on his desk calender are pulled off up to to-day, and that's the first thing he does when he comes down for breakfast. So here I am, Robinson Crusoe for to-night at least."
"I suppose," said Noble huskily, "I suppose you'll go to some of your aunts or brothers or cousins or something."
"No," she said. "My trunk may come up from the station almost any time, and if I close the house they'll take it back."
"You needn't bother about that, Julia. I'll look after it."
"How?"
"I could sit on the porch till it comes," he said. "I'd tell 'em you wanted 'em to leave it." He hesitated, painfully. "I--if you want to lock up the house I--I could wait out on the porch with your trunk, to see that it was safe, until you come back to-morrow morning."
She looked full at him, and he plaintively endured the examination.
"Noble!" Undoubtedly she had a moment's shame that any creature should come to such a pass for her sake. "What crazy nonsense!" she said; and sat upon a stool before the crackling fire. "Do sit down, Noble--unless your dinner will be waiting for you at home?"
"No," he murmured. "They never wait for me. Don't you want me to look after your trunk?"