When they halted at her door, she had a feeling that she could not let him go, just yet.
"You'll come in and dine with us, will you not?" she asked impulsively.
"I wish I might," he answered with that longing tone one falls into when surveying an impossible and alluring temptation. "I simply have to work to-night. I'm already late for my engagement. May I come sometime soon?"
"I wish you would. Father is really very fond of you," she went on, defending her warmth. "He likes young men. He has a sneaking longing for them that no mere girl satisfies. Dick used to be a great deal to him, but--Dick has drifted away. You have not been to see us for a long time."
"Not since the day that Dick's engagement was announced," he answered, looking her boldly in the face. "I couldn't. You made me feel then that you despised me."
"I despised you?" she spoke with bland innocence but rising color.
Madeline hesitated and looked down. She was scarlet.
"I'm not going to pretend to misunderstand you," she said, and turned laughing eyes toward him. "I knew all the time that it was Dick who had done some shabby thing, and you were trying to shield him."
"But you told me I ought to get a mask," Ellery fumbled.
"I meant when you try to tell lies. You don't do it with the grace and conviction of an accomplished hand. Pooh, I can read you like an open book."
"I am very glad you can," he said deliberately. "I thank God you can, because on every page you will read the truth--that I love you--I love you. I'm wanting you to read it in your own way, but some time I am going to let the passion of it loosen this slow tongue of mine and tell you in my own fashion how much it is."
He turned and strode abruptly away. Madeline went in to the firelight of home.
"Why, you look as bright as though you'd heard good news," exclaimed Mr. Elton, peering over his newspaper in welcome.
"Do I, father?" Madeline stooped to rub her cheek softly against his and laughed to herself. "Why, I believe I have. That shows what a whirligig I am. I went out thinking life was a tragedy, and I come back thinking it--"
"A divine comedy," said Madeline and laughed again. "Just see what a walk in the open air will do for a body."
Easter came late in April, when, to match man's mood, it should come; for the world was alive with new vitality. The south winds were infusing their wonder-working heats, and the bluebirds flashing their streaks of color through branches that felt the stir of sap, amid buds that strained to burst. There was the smell of growth where bits of "secret greenness" hid behind the dead leaves of last fall.