"Like you and Montague and Burgoyne!" Stephanie exclaimed.
"The others were only a bit shy, my dear. They all believed in you, you may be certain of that. Most of them didn't feel sure how their overtures would be received—and you didn't give them much help. You were as hard as flint and as cold as an iceberg."
"Because I thought everyone would pass me by. My experience at the Club that first afternoon didn't augur well for me—except with Montague and Burgoyne. Then you were—just the same, and the skies brightened."
"And now you're clouding them again by this foolish fear of Porshinger," said Gladys. "Let alone! Don't you know the old maxim: 'Never trouble trouble till trouble troubles you.'"
"My dear Gladys, don't you think that I have troubled trouble sufficiently to want a brief intermission?"
"Of course you have!" sympathized Gladys.
"And to be entitled to it?"
"I should say so."
"Then why should I borrow trouble unless I had a presentiment of it impending? However, it hasn't cast me down, and it's not going to cast me down. Neither shall I refer to it to anyone, not even to Montague—until I must—and I hope that I shall never must."