"No—you'd better not, after all. It makes me feel guilty. For I did nothing that doesn't come under the head of glorious privilege. A chance to serve you! Why, I'd travel to the ends of the earth for that."
"But—it was good of you. You can hardly realize all it meant to me to reach this hotel by one o'clock. Perhaps I ought to tell you—"
"It doesn't matter," Minot replied. "That you have reached here is my reward." His cheeks burned; his heart sang. Here was the one girl, and he built castles in Spain with lightening strokes. She should be his. She must be. Before him life stretched, glorious, with her at his side—
"I think I will tell you," the girl was saying. "This is to be the most important luncheon of my life because—"
"Yes?" smiled Mr. Minot
"Because it is the one at which I am going to announce my engagement!"
Minot's heart stopped beating. A hundred castles in Spain came tumbling about his ears, and the roar of their falling deafened him. He put out his hand blindly to open the door, for he realized that the car had come to a stop.
"Let me help you, please," he said dully.
And even as he spoke a horrible possibility swept into his heart and overwhelmed him.
"I—I beg your pardon," he stammered, "but would you mind telling me one thing?"