"Never mind, Doctor, you are not going to have a fit. Keep cool, Doctor. Keep perfectly quiet. You will soon get over it. Step outside into the cool air, and you will soon get over it."
"Get over what?" said the exasperated man. "You infernal fool, what are you talking about? Do you think I don't know enough to take care of myself?"
About a second later I stepped into an adjoining room, and there met the cross-eyed girl with her things on ready to leave. She said she didn't know how she would get home, as her friends had gone and left her, expecting the Doctor to act as her escort.
I confessed that I was only joking, and we had better fix it up and let the Doctor take her home.
She nearly went into spasms when I suggested it, and said she wouldn't dare ride a rod with such a man.
The Doctor's farmer friend, our host, came to me and said I had better take the young lady home, and let the Doctor remain with them all night, and he would take him to town the next afternoon. This was satisfactory to the young miss, so we immediately slipped away, without consulting the Doctor, or even bidding him good night.
On our way, I asked her if she would be willing to consent to a meeting with the Doctor, or open a correspondence with him. She refused emphatically to do either, despite the fact that I declared the whole thing a joke.
She said his actions at the last were enough to convince her that it was no joking affair. I was anxious to do something in the Doctor's behalf to atone for the injury to his feelings that I was the cause of, but the matter had gone too far.
I certainly had every reason to regret that things had turned out as they had, for the seventeen miles of travel in taking the girl home and returning to town proved too much for the old nag, and I did not reach my hotel until after nine o'clock that morning. I was at a loss to know how to fix things with the Doctor so as to make matters smooth, and have him cherish no hard feelings.