Ceaselessly pacing the apartment, then, and mulling the matter over, first condemning himself for his presumptuousness and then wondering in a blank sort of a way if Louise herself took this view of his attitude, Blythe found himself on the horns of his life's dilemma. It would not be so bad, he thought with a catch at the throat, if she were not going away; but the thought of the wide Atlantic rolling between them caused his heart to thump against his ribs and incited him to rumple his hair still more outrageously.
At length, seized by an idea, he walked into his study, closed the door after him, sat down at his desk telephone, and called up Laura. Very promptly he heard her musically rising "Well?"
"Greetings, Laura," he said. "This is your insane friend, John Blythe."
"Greetings, Deserter Blythe," replied Laura. "You have not been to see us for an age. And how long have you been insane?"
"For several months, I believe. I am hardly a competent witness as to that."
"I am so distressed to hear it—when your career and—and everything looks so promising, too!"
"'Everything?' Define 'everything.'"
"I haven't the gift of being specific. You have. What, then, is the most convincing manifestation of your insanity?"
"I am thinking of taking a great chance; prematurely, and therefore insanely."
"You are talking rationally enough. Perhaps your madness is a sort of recurrent mania, with lucid intervals?"