He meekly obeyed her and she put on her hat and gloves. As they were going downstairs, she in front of him, Nance had a remote consciousness that Dr. Raughty murmured something in which she caught Adrian’s name. She let this pass, however, and gave him her hand gratefully as he opened the door for her.
“Mayn’t I even see you home?” he asked.
Once more she shook her head. She felt that her nerves, just then, had had enough of playful tenderness.
“Good-bye!” she cried, leaving him on his threshold.
She cast a wistful glance at Baltazar’s cottage as she crossed the green.
“Oh, Adrian, Adrian,” she moaned, “I’d sooner be beaten by you than loved by all the rest of the world!”
It was with a slow and heavy step that Dr. Raughty ascended his little staircase after he had watched her disappear. Entering his room he approached the pile of books left beside her chair and began transporting them, one by one, to their places in the shelves.
“A sweet creature,” he murmured to himself as he did this, “a sweet creature! May ten thousand cartloads of hornified devils carry that damned Sorio into the pit of Hell!”