When he returned to his boarding house, he wrote a grim letter to Gina, in which he said that she must make up her mind at[Pg 74] once either to take him or leave him. At once, mind you; he refused to wait for an answer longer than six months.
He appeared again on his usual evening, and didn’t mention the letter. Gina knew that he never would mention it until exactly six months had passed. He was quite as usual, and only one small incident perturbed her. After dinner, when they were alone, he said:
“Will you not sing ‘Old Dog Tray’ for me, Gina?”
“But—” she said.
“I’m thinking it does me good,” said he.
While she sang, he sat there in wooden silence, smoking his pipe.
“Well!” he thought. “It’s a queer world, to be sure! Who’d think that at my age I’d come courting, and the object of my affections a woman thirty-eight years of age? I’m forty-one, and here I come courting like a lad!”
This made him grin. It seemed to him a very humorous idea, and when, later in the evening, it recurred to him, he was obliged to grin again.
“Why do you smile, Robert?” asked Gina softly.
“Well—well, it’s nothing, as you might say.” But he could not banish the grin.