I did not confide to Paul the actual condition of my mind in regard to Muriel, in fact I was hardly ingenuous. I could not be, as I was sure he would not have understood. I confided in John, who took me seriously, and we sat several sessions late into the night on the subject.
I made my party call at the Joseph house, alone, one Sunday. I was very nervous going alone, but could not bear to go with Paul. I was received as dozens of others, made my share of polite remarks, drank tea and retired in good order, after being asked to call again by Muriel. This invitation was not seconded by Mrs. Joseph, who had a way of looking down on a tall man which was very remarkable in a short woman.
Things happened during this, my last year at college, in such quick succession that it is nearly impossible to set them down in any kind of order. It passed as no year has passed before or since. I met Muriel frequently at the Skating Rink. She did not skate, but the rink was the regular winter rendezvous of hundreds of young people, skaters and non-skaters, who met and chatted, and flirted and had tea. Skating was a secondary thing with many, and it became so with me.
I became a regular visitor at the Joseph house, and formed a friendship with the Doctor, who liked young people. My talent for mimicry and comic songs amused the old man, and I became perfectly at home with him. He enjoyed yarns with a point, and I industriously worked to provide him with well-told whimsical and amusing tales. Also I wanted to know things, and had always many questions to put to him, which he always seemed happy to answer. Thereby I acquired many useful bits of knowledge in various directions.
My cultivation of the Doctor was not premeditated cunning, for in fact I was strongly drawn to him. Many evenings I spent most of the time with him, not with Muriel. I preferred that to being forced to take my share of her amongst a crowd of young chaps, and Paul always at her side.
Mrs. Joseph disliked me at sight, and her hawk-like eye watched me. She knew I was in love with Muriel long before any one else was aware of it. She thought my cultivation of the Doctor was cunning, and knew I was dangerous.
The few opportunities that came to me of seeing Muriel alone, I made the most of in my own way, and she knew my mind long before I blurted out the truth, which happened one moonlit night, when we were returning from a tobogganing party. She was not coy or coquettish, but frankly admitted that her love was mine.
“But what of Paul?” I asked her.
“Paul?” she exclaimed laughing. “Why Paul, any more than one of the others?”
“Because he loves you, and you have loved him,” I answered. “Did you not tell him so?”