"Indeed, I think I must go now, if I would not be thought more insensible than a post. Wait till I put on more wraps, and do you get your overcoat, sir, or you will take cold."
"Yes, I'm awfully afraid I shall be chilled, and the overcoat wouldn't help me. Nevertheless, I'll do your bidding in this, as in all respects."
"What a lamblike frame of mind!" she cried; but her step up the piazza was light and quick.
"She could not so play with me if she meant to be cruel, for she has not a feline trait," I murmured, as I pulled on my ulster. "This genial day has been my ally, and she has not the heart to embitter it. So far from finding 'other interests,' she must have seen that time has intensified the one chief interest of my life. Oh, it would be like death to be sent away again. How beautiful she has become in her renewed health! Her great spiritual eyes make me more conscious of the woman-angel within her than of a flesh-and-blood girl. Human she is indeed, but never of the earth, earthy. Even when I take her hand, now again so plump and pretty, I feel the exquisite thrill of her life within. It's like touching a spirit, were such a thing possible. I crushed her hand this morning, brute that I was! It's been red all day. Well, Heaven speed me now!"
"What! talking to yourself again, Mr. Morton?" asked Miss Warren, suddenly appearing, and looking anything but spirit-like, with her rich color and substantial wraps.
"It's a habit of lonely people," I said.
"The idea of a man being lonely among such crowds as you must meet!"
"I have yet to learn that a crowd makes company."
"Wouldn't you like to ask Mr. Yocomb to go with us?"
"No," I replied, very brusquely.