Taking time out to sense the bruised condition of your heart isn’t a whole lot different from taking time out to recover from a jolt received in the prize ring. Having released that impassioned sentence, “I hope you are going to like his best friend just a little!” young Mr. Gladwin felt a trifle groggy.
Until he had spoken he hadn’t realized just how badly his cardiac equipment was being shot to pieces by the naked god’s ruthless archery.
The fact that the case should have appeared hopeless only fanned the flame of his ardor. He had looked into the depths of two vividly blue eyes and there read his destiny. So he told himself fiercely; whereupon, in the Rooseveltian phrase, he cast his hat into the ring.
He cared no more for obstacles than a runaway horse. His very boredom of the past few years had stored up vast reserves of energy within him, waiting only for that psychological thrill to light the fuse.
As Helen Burton turned from him with the uncomfortable feeling of one who has received a vague 101 danger signal he paused only a moment before he again strode to her side. He was about to speak when she took the lead from him and, looking up at one of the masterpieces on the wall, said:
“Oh, this is his wonderful collection of paintings! He told me all about them.”
It was what the gentlemen pugilists would call a cross-counter impinging upon the supersensitive maxillary muscles. It certainly jarred the owner of that wonderful collection and caused him to turn with an expression of astonishment to Whitney Barnes.
But that young man was intensely occupied in a vain endeavor to draw more than a monosyllable from the shrinking Sadie Burton. He missed the look and went doggedly ahead with his own task. Helen Burton repeated her remark that he had told her all about his paintings.
“Oh, has he?” responded Gladwin, dully.
“Yes, and they are worth a fortune!” cried the girl. “He simply adores pictures.”