“You wouldn’t understand, I’m afraid. It’s a long story, and I don’t believe I have a right to tell you. Just believe me, Patsy, and help me brace up a hard-hit man.”
“But, Dick, you must tell me. I can’t bear to have Ralph unhappy. Is anybody dead?”
“No—no—Patsy—not that. I can’t tell you—” and this amateur plotter, to whom it had never occurred until that moment that arousing a woman’s curiosity and possibly suspicion over the sorrows of a man in whom she was interested, was an effective means of kindling her passion, seized the opening and put a world of mystery and meaning into his tone as he repeated, “I cannot tell you.”
“But I cannot meet him. You know how Ralph despises me?”
“But, Patsy, I know he does not. He comes close to adoring you.”
“What nonsense! From you, too! What assurance can I have that he won’t fly into a rage and berate me for knitting—for I shall bring my knitting?”
“Do—do—and I’ll be responsible for Ralph. You’ll come?”
“Ye-e-es.”
“I wonder,” said this intriguing parson, “if I’m interfering with the work of the gods, and shall make the usual mess of it.”
But he stuck to his plan, and that afternoon when he dropped into the Argus office casually suggested that he was giving a party and that Ralph was to come. “And Patsy is to be there, and you are not to quarrel with her.”