"Don," she said, tenderly, "you must not be so impetuous. Give up this plan and perhaps—some day—I—"
"It is too late," I replied, understanding her very well. "I will never ask any woman a second time the question I asked you. Be decent, Statia. You make too much of a little thing. If there had been anything very wicked in my mind, do you think I would have come here to tell you about it? Let us drop the subject, and be good friends for the short time that remains before I go. Why, there's less than a fortnight left."
She nodded, attempted to smile, and finding that she made a poor show at it, left the room to prepare herself for dinner. When the meal was served, however, we missed her old joviality. She did not speak unless spoken to, and Tom, after trying in vain to engage her in conversation, declared that she must go to see Dr. Chambers the very next morning.
"You'll get into the state that Don did last winter," he said, half jestingly, "if you keep on. He began with just a plain, ordinary attack of the blues, and see where it landed him. Yes, you certainly must go to see Chambers. I never knew you like this before, and there's nothing on earth to cause it."
When I mentioned, soon after we rose from the table, that I had an engagement at my rooms—a fiction, by-the-by—Tom said if I was going to walk he would go part way with me. I was glad to breathe the pure cold air of December and listen to the chatter of the honest fellow, while at the same time escaping from that house, that had nearly sent me again into the doldrums.
CHAPTER V.
MEETING MISS MARJORIE.
The next morning was an awfully long one. I had decided to call on Miss May in the afternoon, "between the hours of two and four," as she had stipulated. Although I had never seen her and had no description of what she was like, I already hoped she would be the One to make my coming journey agreeable. I had the old impetuosity, you will see, that absence of calm deliberation that had sent me to a Sanitarium and nearly to my grave.
If I intended to take a train scheduled to start for any given point at ten I was always in the station without fail at half past nine, stamping my feet at the closed gate, with alternate glances at my watch. If I had an engagement of special interest for a Friday, the Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays dragged horribly.