“Then I began to hunger and thirst after respectability, and a wife, and a home, and all the commonplace blessings of the well-behaved. And because I can’t have them I am minded to do a lot of foolish things.”
The editor removed his glasses and fell to polishing them absently. “Perhaps you are not willing to pay the price,” he suggested.
“Yes, I am—if I know my own mind.”
“Then you have found the—what shall we call her?—the affinity?”
“I have; found her and lost her again.”
“Very few things are lost in this world—beyond the hope of finding them again, I mean. What happened?”
“That which was sure to happen, sooner or later. Her mother found me out and sent me adrift with a Scotch blessing.”
“H’m! that was a bit hard. Does the young woman know?”
“That is what I can’t find out, though I am afraid she does. I met her face to face yesterday, and she passed me without a word.”
“Which proves nothing more than that she may be nearsighted. I shouldn’t lose any sleep over that.”