He said very little about it to me, because he didn't like me, and was less naturally himself with me, I think, than with anyone. But he talked to everyone else, and to Peter he never ceased pouring out his soul.
A week later he proposed to her. She refused him, of course. He was not in the least disturbed. He would propose to her again very shortly, and then again and again to the end of time....
I fancied, however, that that first refusal would he the end of it.
He would see in a little how absurd his pursuit was, and would abandon it. I must confess that I looked forward to that abandonment. This sudden passion had not from my point of view, improved him. It made him a little absurd, and it had checked absolutely for the moment the flow of his stories. I was surprised to find how seriously I missed them.
Then one morning my telephone rang, and, answering it, I recognised Miss Cather's voice.
"May I come and have tea with you this afternoon?" she asked.
"Why, of course," I answered. "I'll be delighted. Whom shall I invite?"
"Nobody," she answered. "I want to talk to you."
I was flattered and pleased. Any widower of over fifty is pleased when any woman wants to come and have tea with him alone. Besides, I liked Miss Cather—liked her surprisingly. In the first place, she liked me, found my mind "truly realistic" and my brain well balanced. But in reality I liked her, I think, because I was beginning to discover in her a certain freshness and childishness and even naïveté of soul which I had certainly not expected at first. But seriousness and balance and austerity of manner did not go nearly as deep as it pretended. She knew not nearly as much about life as she herself fancied.