Sturgis started like a man suddenly awakened from a deep sleep.
"Eh? What?—Oh, yes—those confidences. Well, you start in with yours. I am trying to find the dénouement of my story. I feel that it is just within my grasp; and yet I cannot seem to see it yet. But I can listen to you while I am thinking. Go on."
"I have not any story to tell," said Sprague, somewhat offended at his friend's apparent indifference to what he had to say.
"Oh, yes, you have," retorted Sturgis, with a conciliatory smile; "you said you had news to tell me. Well, tell away. I am listening most respectfully in spite of my apparent absorption."
"What a strange fellow you are, Sturgis," laughed Sprague good naturedly. "All I wanted to tell you—and you are the first to hear of it,—is the, to me, rather important fact that I am engaged to be married."
"You are?" exclaimed Sturgis with genuine pleasure. "I congratulate you, old fellow, from the bottom of my heart."
He seized the artist's hand and shook it in his hearty grasp.
"To the original of the picture you wanted to show me yesterday?" he asked.
"Yes."
"Then she was not betrothed to the other fellow, after all?"