Jean snapped off the light and went out to the roof again.
Jerome Stuart had gone away. But he would come back.
CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE
Jerome Stuart grinned at the red-cap who rushed forward for his bag, at the transfer man to whom he gave his checks, to the taxi driver whom he beckoned, and finally, when he found himself sitting on the very edge of the seat as if, by so doing, he could force the vehicle more quickly through the traffic, at himself.
For a little over two weeks he had managed to stay away. And, although from the moment he had entered the train to return, he could not have told why he ever went, still less why he had stayed, he was proud of the achievement. He felt that he had acquired a power of self-control that no emergency of life could ever shake. He had fished and tramped and played tennis and, one evening, alone in his room, he had even tried to do some serious reading. At the memory of that evening, Jerome leaned against the cushions and laughed aloud.
"You poor, besotted idiot."
He might be fifty, sixty, a hundred. He might have a dozen daughters and a score of grandchildren. None of it had anything to do with his love for Jean Herrick. He had run away in a kind of perverted modesty, just as a child might refuse a longed-for present beyond its just expectations,
"It would serve you right if she had gone away and you couldn't find her."
But at the thought, Jerome perched on the edge of the seat again.
"Steady, old top, steady. If you go at things like this, you'll bungle the whole business. And then you will be in a fix. Besides, you know, you can't dash in and ask a lady to marry you, when she hasn't even the least idea you're in love. Cool down, grandpa, cool down."