At last she tore them up and sent this instead:
MY DEAR MR. MANN:--Such a pity that we are not to have our fun, after
all. Yet, perhaps it is just as well. I should be very speedily without
my light, and the cry of "senza moccolo, senza moccola," must be very
dispiriting. Have a good time right along. Good-bye--good-bye.
Of course, if Mae had not been beside herself with conflicting emotions,
she would never have sent this note, or repeated the good-bye in that
echoing, departing sort of way. Norman Mann knit his brow as he read it.
"What is the row now?" he thought. "What a child it is, anyway. She has
had the mocoletti fun in her mind since we left America, and now she
throws it away. Well, there's no help for it; I'm booked for Miss Rae.
I'll get Eric to see if Mae's really ill. I wonder if she's afraid of
me, because she cried last night, afraid I took that big tear for more
than it was worth.
"Mae," said Eric, entering her room an hour later, "Norman feels
dreadfully that you are not able to go to-night, and so do I.
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