“Well—who is it?” said I.
“I’m afraid you’ll think she’s been at me to help her. But, on my honor, Loring, she isn’t that sort. We’ve talked of you. For some reason, ever since I’ve known her—well, I’ve never seen her without thinking of you. I often talk of you to her—not marrying talk—I’d not dare—but in a friendly sort of way. She listens—says nothing.”
“But she is sickly,” said I.
“Sickly?” he cried. He looked horrified and amazed. “Good Lord, what gave you that notion?”
“You said you saw her often.”
“Oh, I see. It was her brother who had the illness.”
“All right. Bring her round and I’ll look her over,” said I carelessly. And I forced a change of subject.
Had Mary Kirkwood been taking this agreeable, insidious doctor into her confidence? I did not know. I do not know. I have reasons for thinking he told the literal truth. And yet—women are queer about doctors. However, that’s a small matter. The thing that impressed me, that agitated me as he talked, was the picture he, by implication, was making of Mary Kirkwood, alone again, and evidently absolutely unattached—living alone in the country as when I first knew her.
I tossed and fretted away most of the hours of that night with the result that at breakfast I resolved to leave town again, to put the width of the continent or of the ocean between me and temptation to folly. But one thing and another came up to detain me. It was perhaps ten days later that I, walking alone in the Park, as was my habit, found myself at a turning face to face with her. I don’t think my expression reflected credit upon my boasted self-control. As for her—I thought she was going to faint—and she is not one of the fainting kind. We gazed at each other in fright and embarrassment, and both had the same child’s impulse to turn and fly—one, of those sensible, natural instincts for the shortest way out of difficult situations that the cowardly conventionality of the grown-up estate makes it impossible to obey. But—we had to do something. So, we laughed.
She put out her hand; I took it. “How well you are looking,” said I—and it was the truth.