"Is it true what I hear about Patty and that rich young Mr. Whiteland, of New York?"
"What is it that you have heard?"
"Why, that their engagement is about to be announced."
Warrington stood perfectly still. Whiteland had been a guest at the Adirondack bungalow earlier in the summer. He waited for the answer, and it seemed to him that it would never come.
"I am not engaged to any one, Mrs. Haldene, and I hope you will do me the favor to deny the report whenever you come across it." Patty had returned. "It seems incredible that a young man may not call upon a young woman without their names becoming coupled matrimonially."
"Nevertheless, he is regarded as extremely eligible."
"I have often wondered over Haldene's regular Saturday night jag at the club," said John, stringing his count, "but I wonder no longer. They say she never goes out Saturdays."
Warrington heard the words, but the sense of them passed by. He could realize only one thing, and that was, he loved Patty better than all the world. He could accept his own defeat with philosophy, but another man's success!—could he accept that? How strangely everything had changed in the last few days! He had never known real mental anguish; heartaches in others had always afforded him mild amusement and contempt. It was one thing, he reflected, to write about human emotions; it was entirely another thing to live and act them. He saw that his past had been full of egotism and selfishness, but he also saw that his selfishness was of the kind that has its foundation in indifference and not in calculation. The voices went on down stairs, but he ceased to pay any attention to them.
"John, there's been something in my mind for many months."
"What is it?"