"Oh, you don't know," Lois said, pensively. "Girls like that often have what they call, rather picturesquely, a fellow."
"Oh, don't!" His cry was instantly followed by a nervous laugh. He felt obliged to explain. "It's so funny to hear you talk like that. It doesn't go with your style."
She took this pleasantly and they spoke of other things; but Thor was eager to get away. A real visit of atonement had become impossible. That must be put off for another day—perhaps for ever. He wasn't sure. He couldn't tell. For the minute his head was in a whirl. He hardly knew what he was saying, except that his rejoinders to Lois's remarks were more or less at random. Vital questions were pounding through his brain and demanding an answer. Who knew but that with regard to Rosie she was right—and yet wrong? Women, with their remarkable powers of divination, didn't always hit the nail directly on the head. It might be the case with Lois now. She might be right in her surmise that Rosie was in love, and mistaken in those light and cruel words: "Oh, not with you!" He didn't suppose it was with him. And yet ... and yet...!
He got away at last, and tore through the winter twilight toward the old apple-orchard above the pond. He knew what he would say. "Rosie, are you in love with any one? If so, for God's sake, tell me." What he would do when she answered him was matter outside his present capacity for thought.
It had begun to snow. By the time he reached the house on the hill his shoulders were white. The necessity for shaking himself in the little entry gave the first prosaic chill to his ardor.
Rosie had returned and was preparing supper. The princess and marvel had resolved herself again into the fairy of the hothouse. Not that Thor minded that. What disconcerted him was her dry little manner of surprise. She had not expected him. There was nothing in her mother's condition to demand his call. She herself was busy. She had come from the kitchen to answer the door. A smell of cooking filled the house.
No one of these details could have kept him from carrying out his purpose; but together they were unromantic. How could he adjure her to tell him for God's sake whether or not she was in love with any one when he saw she was afraid that something was burning on the stove? He could only stammer out excuses for having come. Inventing on the spot new and incoherent directions for the treatment of Mrs. Fay, he took himself away again, not without humiliation.
Being in a savage mood as he stalked down the hill, he was working himself into a rage when an unexpected occurrence gave him other things to think of.
At the foot of the hill, just below the slope of the Square, was the terminus of the electric tram-line from the city. In summer it was a pretty spot, well shaded by ornamental trees, with a small Gothic church and its parsonage in the center of a trimly kept lawn. It was prettier still as Thor Masterman approached it, at the close of a winter's day, with the great soft flakes, heaping their beauty on roof and shrub and roadway, the whole lit up with plenty of cheerful electricity, and no eye to behold it but his own.