That night she tossed about and brought herself to book.
Morris had been behaving lately in a way they do before they begin to go to pieces and become temporary asses in the presence of their Titania. He had lost his fine spirit of camaraderie. He had been glaring at his fraternity pin, which Gorgas used, like a dozen other such articles, to adorn the dress it best suited. He had been moody and listless—the usual symptoms; and he had been hanging about like a stupid.
Try as she might she couldn’t get a thrill out of the thought. Ned Morris was a brother; that was all; a splendid chum, the sort at fellow you get terribly used to and wouldn’t give up without a fight. But anything else— Horrors! It was profanation of friendship to think it.
Nevertheless, she enjoyed the prospect of an adorer. It gave her the most unaccountable feeling of elation and self-pity and yearning and depression—all enjoyable sensations, every one. It attacked her so hard that she arose at sun-up, ate no breakfast, and let the metal work slide.
“You do not work today?” Bardek looked up from his bench, where he was inlaying a hair-like design of silver in the softest copper.
“Nope.”
“You are sick, may be?”
“Goodness, no!”
Hammer, hammer, hammer.
“Goin’ to jus’—loaf, eh?”