He seized the bauble and ground it beneath his heel. As he did so her strength failed her, and she sank to the floor.
“That knocked her out!” he muttered, and he started to count: “One!—Two!—Three—Four!-”
“Oh, not necessarily!” she said, struggling to her feet. “I'm still in it; and I say again, give up golf, or give up me!”
“The die is cast!” and as he spoke the fatal words, the eyes of George Maurice St. John took on the firm, irrevocable expression of a fish's set in death. “I wouldn't give up golf for the best woman that ever put a dress on over her head. Maiden, you ask too much; you come too high! Damsel, I quit you cold!”
George Maurice St. John rushed from the scene. The ponderous door, as it slammed behind him, echoed and re-echoed through the vaulted apartments of the McLaurin mansion. Angelina McLaurin listened until his footsteps died away far up the street.
“He has flew the coop on me!” she wailed.
Then she gave way to a torrent of tears. In her distress Angelina McLaurin was more beautiful than ever. Two minutes! Five minutes! Ten minutes went by! Her tears still fell like rain.
“I have turned the hose on my hopes!” she said.
This was the thought that crossed her mind; but she desperately womanned (word coined since advent of new woman) herself to bear it.