"How?" He was eager.
She did not answer, but arose slowly. "I think I must be going."
He followed her, thoroughly dissatisfied with himself at having let his moment pass. He understood her well enough. It was only by stopping still, as she had said, that he could lose her. She had started a change in him, and it must go on. Something which tied his hands, his mind, must be cut; he must be free of that before he could speak.
They retraced their steps, she talking, as when they had come, inconsequently; he, moody, troubled inwardly, self-conscious. She was to give him one more hope, however. As she left him, on the avenue, she offered her hand, and smiled.
"Don't give it up," she said, and turned away, leaving him standing alone, still fighting his battle with himself.
He had enough to think of, as he strode home, ill-satisfied with himself and in a turmoil of thought in regard to her. There was no question of mastery, now; she had beaten him at his own game. It was only a question of surrender.
He went up into his office and stood, looking about. The row of plaster casts confronted him. He took one from the row and examined it. There, too, was a heart line split up with divergent branches, punctuated with little islands, beginning at the Mount of Saturn, herring-boned to the end, at the double crease which signified two marriages. The fingers were short and fat, the thumb being far too small. Small joints, broad lines, deep cushions at the Mounts of Venus and Mercury, deep bracelets at the wrist—Granthope's eyes read the signs as if the hand were a face, or a whole body.
As he turned the cast over thoughtfully, to look at the back, it dropped from his grasp and fell to the floor, breaking into a dozen pieces. Bits of wire projected humorously from the stump. He smiled.
"Kismet!" he said to himself. "Adieu, Violet!"
He was stooping to clear away the fragments when he heard a knock upon the door. Going to answer it, he found Professor Vixley waiting.