Suppose Patty really meant it! Bosh! Meant it! His Patty? Never! He would believe anything but that! Could it have been a mistake? Did she slip his valentine in an envelope which she had addressed to him for the purpose of sending another one,—and then she had mixed them up?
No; Patty was never careless, and least of all, where he was concerned. She was efficient, always, and he had had too much correspondence with her not to know how careful she was. And then, came to his mind dark thoughts of Philip Van Reypen.
Suppose,—just suppose, Patty had found that she preferred Phil to himself,—could she have chosen a better or more definite way to tell him so?
“Should your love be dead!”
The big man writhed at the thought. He put it out of his mind as unworthy of him and unworthy of his love. And yet, that would explain it,—and what else would? What else could? But that explanation he refused to accept. Patty, his own gentle dear little Patty, he wouldn’t be cruel,—but—if she had such a thing to tell him, she would choose some way that seemed to her the least cruel—he knew that!
Was she using his means—as he had unwittingly given her the chance,—oh, why had he sent that foolish thing? It was silly,—it was absurd,—it was bad taste on his part!
But Lena had brought it, and it had seemed to him silly, but harmless.
He worried and fretted, fumed and scowled, but he could come to no satisfactory conclusion or explanation.
He looked at his watch until he almost wore it out, only to find each time that but a moment or two had elapsed.
At last he gave up trying to work and went out for a walk.