3
But she did come. She was very much surprised to see me.
"You!" she said, with a gesture which was practically tantamount to disbelief. "Why, how extraordinary!"
"You rogue!" I commented, internally: "you know it is the most natural thing in the world." Aloud I stated: "Why, yes, I happened to notice you forgot your book yesterday, so I dropped in—or, to be more accurate, climbed up,—to return it."
She reached for it. Our hands touched, with the usual result to my pulses. Also, there were the customary manual tinglings.
"You are very kind," was her observation, "for I am wondering which one of the two he will marry."
"Forman tells me he has no notion, himself."
"Oh, then you know Justus Miles Forman! How nice! I think his stories are just splendid, especially the way his heroes talk to photographs and handkerchiefs and dead flowers—"
Afterward she opened the book, and turned over its pages expectantly, and flushed a proper shade of pink, and said nothing.
And then, and not till then, my heart consented to resume its normal functions. And then, also, "These iron spikes—" said its owner.